Today's Sunday Telegraph features an extraordinary interview with the UK Government's Justice Secretary, Dominic Raab. The report raises three issues of significant constitutional concern: that the Government may be contemplating further changes to judicial review in the light of recent judgments to which it takes exception; that the Government is considering undermining through domestic law … Continue reading Undermining the rule of law? A comment on the Justice Secretary’s Sunday Telegraph interview
Tag: rule of law
It doesn’t seem (because it isn’t) very long since the UK Government planned to get Parliament to enact legislation that would have authorised Ministers to make regulations permitting parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol they don’t like to be breached. The Government sensibly dropped this idea in the end: the relevant provisions did not find … Continue reading Legal exceptionalism in British political discourse: International law, parliamentary sovereignty and the rule of law
This is the final in my series of four posts concerning the Report of the Independent Review of Administrative Law (IRAL) and the Government’s Response to it. Focussing particularly on the direction of travel that is envisaged in the latter, I have addressed the potential implications for the doctrine of nullity, the efficacy of ouster clauses and the courts’ … Continue reading Judicial review reform IV: Culture war? Two visions of the UK constitution
If proof were needed that a week can be a long time in politics, one would need to look no further than the events of the last seven days in the UK. Three matters during the course of the last week have vividly illustrated — individually, but more importantly collectively — an increasingly clear narrative … Continue reading The (constitutional) state we’re in: A week in British politics
Mark Elliott and Stephen Tierney summarise the House of Lords Constitution Committee's report on the EU (Withdrawal) Bill, and highlight some of the key constitutional implications raised by the Committee
The third edition of Public Law was published by Oxford University Press in May 2017. This is the third in a series of posts by the authors, Mark Elliott and Robert Thomas, taking the 2017 election and Brexit as reference points and updating readers on recent developments in the field. These posts are based on updates first published by Oxford University Press in the book's Online Resource Centre.
The "Black Spider Memos" case resulted in the publication of some rather pedestrian correspondence between Prince Charles and Government Ministers. But the Supreme Court's judgment raises some fascinating constitutional issues
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
The legitimate extent of judicial authority is a perennial and thorny question. In this lecture, I address the question from the perspective of public law — and, in particular, with reference to the role that judges play in relation to "constitution-making".
The Judicial Power Project has published a list of 50 “problematic” cases. It makes for interesting reading. The aim of the Judicial Power Project is to address the “problem” of “judicial overreach” which, it is said, “increasingly threatens the rule of law and effective, democratic government”. It is odd, therefore, to find on Judicial Power’s … Continue reading Judicial Power’s 50 “problematic” cases and the limits of the judicial role
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