Unmasking Truths Unraveling Stories
Unmasking Truths Unraveling Stories
*Editors’ Note: This post is part of the ‘Unwritten Constitutional Norms and Principles Blog Series’* Unwritten constitutional principles supply much of the foundation – or ‘hidden wiring’ – of the UK constitution. As Lord Reed has recently recognised, the constitution relies on numerous ‘understandings, generally tacit, about how power should be exercised’. Constitutional form and […]
*Editors’ Note: This post is part of the ‘Unwritten Constitutional Norms and Principles Blog Series’* Throughout the life of devolution, the courts appear to have diverged on how to properly determine the scope and limits of devolved lawmaking power, and the extent to which norms and principles not expressly contained in the text of the […]
On 13 May 2024, Humphreys J in the Northern Ireland High Court delivered his judgment in The matter of Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, JR295 and the Illegal Migration Act 2023 [2024] NIKB 35. The case dealt with the impact of the Withdrawal Agreement and the Windsor Framework. Re NIHRC had the effect of disapplying […]
*Editors’ Note: This post is part of the ‘Unwritten Constitutional Norms and Principles Blog Series’* It remains commonplace, both in political and public law discourse, to describe the Royal Prerogative as archaic or anachronistic. Executive power in the United Kingdom may begin with the Crown, but even the most venerated constitutional historians have long thought ‘the Crown’ is a convenient […]
*Editors’ note: This post is part of a series on ‘the Unwritten Constitutional Norms and Principles’* Constitutional structures generally leave space for institutional innovations that can enhance the democratic process. One such innovation, embraced by a variety of countries around the world, is the deliberative minipublic. Experimentation with incorporating deliberative minipublics into the modern democratic process began […]
Introduction Who gets to interpret and articulate unwritten constitutional principles (UCPs) or constitutional silences? In answering that question, we often assume that the key institutional actors are either the courts and Parliament (or both, depending on one’s position). However, such assumptions often lead us to exclude both the role of the executive and ordinary citizens […]
In 2021 the then Lord Chancellor Robert Buckland QC MP cited the principle of legality as an example of an aspect of public law that might ‘take on a life of [its] own, and lead to the courts overreaching.’ In the simplest terms, the principle of legality is a common law rule of statutory interpretation […]
Unwritten constitutionalism is often associated with Westminster systems, but it is arguably a feature of all constitutional democracies, including jurisdictions with highly codified constitutions. The ‘unwritten’ facets of the constitution encompass a range of constitutional norms and principles that do not derive their validity from texts authorized through a formal institutional process. The unwritten rules […]
In one of the most celebrated passages in legal history, Lord Atkin stated in Liversidge v Anderson [1942] AC 206 that whether in war or in peace, the laws speak in the same voice and that the judges, “stand between the subject and any attempted encroachments on his liberty by the executive, alert to see that any […]
Human rights in the UK are routinely reviewed by various UN bodies – treaty bodies, special procedures, and the Universal Periodic Review (UPR). The influence of these activities in the UK has been the subject of some inquiry in the past (see, notably, Brice Dickson’s recent book on the subject). But what has remained elusive […]
