Professor Mark Elliott
In his judgment in Ismailov v Foreign Secretary, Saini J appears to endorse two incompatible views of the principle of legality. One of those views reconfigures a principle that has traditionally brought normatively independent common law constitutional principles into relationship with legislation, instead casting it as a tool for determining the “true intention” of Parliament. This forms part of a wider trend in the courts’ constitutional case law that amounts…
The Chişinău Declaration, issued by the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers on 15 May 2026, is an attempt by signatory States to reframe how the European Convention on Human Rights affects national governments’ capacity to control migration. Meanwhile, concerns about the limits imposed by human rights law in this area are a driving force behind populist political movements across Europe, and will likely play a prominent role in a…
A complete list of posts can be found in the archive
Uncertainty about the position of the Prime Minister has raised the question whether Andy Burnham, currently the Mayor of Greater Manchester, might return to the House of Commons in order to challenge for the leadership of the Labour Party. Some commentators have even suggested that Burnham could, on an interim basis, become Prime Minister before…
As prorogation and a King’s Speech approach, the Terminally Ill Adults Bill cannot now be enacted before the end of the current parliamentary session. By blocking the Bill, has the House of Lords constitutionally overreached?
The forthcoming King’s Speech, it is reported, will include a Bill to facilitate “dynamic alignment” with some EU rules, attracting criticism from some politicians that sovereignty regained through Brexit is now to be sacrificed, subverting the “will of the people”. Such arguments, however, cannot withstand scrutiny.
In the Ammori case, the High Court held that the Home Secretary’s decision to proscribe Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act 2000 was unlawful. But a quashing order has not been issued and the government now plans to appeal. In those circumstances, are media reports correct to say that, for the time being, Palestine Action…
The High Court has ruled that the government’s decision to proscribe Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act 2000 was unlawful, holding that the decision contravenes the government’s own policy on proscription as well as breaching the fundamental rights of freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. This post examines the legal reasoning that led the…
In an open letter written in the context of the passage of the Terminally Ill Adults Bill through Parliament, three former Cabinet Secretaries assert that respect for the ‘primacy’ of the Commons is ‘not optional’. Contrary to this claim, however, the Commons has only such primacy as convention and law accord to it.