The days of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 — adopted almost a decade ago as part of the Coalition Agreement between the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Parties — appear to be numbered. The Government has published draft legislation to repeal the Act along with a statement of principles concerning the exercise of the prerogative power … Continue reading Repealing the Fixed-term Parliaments Act
Tag: ouster clauses
In an earlier post and in evidence to the House of Lords Constitution Committee I have already drawn attention to concerns about the attempt in the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill to oust judicial review of regulations made under clauses 42 and 43 — the provisions that allow Ministers to breach the UK’s international obligations … Continue reading One step forward, two steps back? Judicial review and the Government’s amendments to the Internal Market Bill
The willingness of the UK’s Brexiteer-led Government to pick fights with the European Union is a given. So too, now, is its appetite for a show-down with the courts, as the recently launched review of administrative law attests. It is therefore perhaps no surprise that the Government, via the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill, has … Continue reading The Internal Market Bill – A Perfect Constitutional Storm
In a new paper, I examine the way in which judges in the UK respond to ouster clauses — and reflect on what such responses might tell us about the nature of the contemporary British constitution and the courts' perception of their place within it
In the Privacy International case, the Court of Appeal accepted that an ouster clause precluded judicial review of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. Sales LJ contended that the issue turned on 'a short point of statutory construction'. The reality, however, is that such cases take the courts into the deepest of constitutional waters.
Ouster clauses raise difficult questions about the relationship between the constitutional principles of the rule of law and the sovereignty of Parliament — as the disagreement between the two judges in this case demonstrates
Public Law for Everyone 