Significance of R(Jackson) v A.G [2005] for Parliamentary Supremacy in the Modern British Constitution. (2024)

The constitutional entrenchment of the Scottish Parliament 2010-2015

Jamie Dunne

Tracing through the Supreme Court’s judgments in Axa (2011), H v Lord Advocate (2012), and HS2 (2014), this article explores the evolution of the Scottish Parliament’s place within the UK’s uncodified constitution over the last five years. Ultimately it will be argued that the emergence of an increasingly autochthonous Scottish polity poses an increasing challenge to the orthodox interpretations of UK constitutional law at a key political turning point in British history.

Parliamentary Supremacy - A Political or Constitutional principle?

Yaman Birawi

In what ways, if any, does the proposed referendum on Scottish independence challenge traditional understandings of Westminster parliamentary sovereignty?

Eilidh Douglas

Parliamentary supremacy

peter lwana

Is the UK Westminster Parliament still sovereign?

ugonna obunike

Over the years, there has been a vast amount of literature by academic scholars debating the Diceyan orthodox view of parliamentary sovereignty. This has occurred as a result of the United Kingdom’s European Union membership, the Jackson landmark case, the common law and several other factors. These factors have placed pressure upon the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty which has led to it being questioned.

[2015] Juridical Review 259

The 'Scotland Clauses' and Parliamentary supremacy

Kenneth Campbell

In the period since the referendum in September 2014 it has become increasingly evident that while independence for Scotland would have been a radical constitutional event, the consequence of the ‘No’ vote has been to place the continuing British Constitution in almost as much limelight. While the so-called draft Scotland Clauses annexed to the UK Government’s formal response to the Smith Commission report on the further devolution of powers to the Scottish Parliament are in the first instance a political solution to a political problem, nevertheless the proposed treatment of the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Government and the Sewel Convention appear likely to have effects of the deepest constitutional significance well beyond Scotland. This article explores the structure of those clauses, and some of their consequences for Scottish and British constitutionalism. It will be suggested that in addition to their institutional significance in Scotland, those consequences will include a profound challenge to the conventional model of (Westminster) Parliamentary supremacy. It may well be that such change is inherent in recent political interest in spreading devolution beyond the existing an obvious national units of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. What is less widely evident is appreciation of the connectedness of the British constitution and the broad consequences of appearing to adjust only one strand.

The Principle Of Parliamentary Supremacy In The UK Constitutional Law And Its Limitations

Paul Peter

Does the current Devolution Settlement in the UK represent a fundamental challenge to the traditional doctrine of Parliamentary Sovereignty?

Nicholas Villalta

Can Westminster Abolish the Scottish Parliament?

Peter Sp

The question of the contemporary status of parliamentary sovereignty is a significant and vexed one. The doctrine’s status in Scotland has been a vexed academic issue for centuries. It has been further problematized by the inception of the Scottish Parliament and the recent Scottish Independence Referendum. The central question of this work is: can Westminster abolish the Scottish Parliament unilaterally? This issue will be explored in five parts. The first section will consist of a broad discussion of sovereignty, focusing on the classical debates regarding Westminster’s sovereignty and the question of whether Scotland possessed a distinct tradition of popular sovereignty prior to entering the Union. The work will then examine the events of the 1980s and 1990s and argue that it represented a constitutional step change in Scotland. The work will then explore the constitutional and political meaning of referendums, before looking at the Canadian approach to accommodating constitutional change and compare it to the attitudes adopted by the Scottish and British supreme courts. Finally, the work will discuss the theories of constitutional unsettlement and constitutional moments. The central contention of this work is that, whilst a distinctly Scottish approach to sovereignty did not exist until the 1990s, the political rupture created by the Conservative government of the 1980s and 1990s acted as a constitutional moment, crystalized in the 1997 Referendum on Devolution, which politically entrenched the Scottish Parliament’s status in the Scottish and British constitutional orders. The 2014 Referendum confirmed the political necessity for recourse to popular sovereignty on profound constitutional issues. This, however, has not been reflected in law. Westminster retains the theoretical capacity to abolish the Scottish Parliament. In reality, this is an almost meaningless power, but the power cannot be removed without destroying parliamentary sovereignty itself. The state of constitutional unsettlement that the United Kingdom continues to exist in means that there is little hope for formal settlement of this issue, even taking into account the impending legislative confirmation of the Scottish Parliament’s political permanence.

does Parliament have primacy of law making responsibility?

Adrian Smith

The primacy of law-making in the United Kingdom has been held with the legislature and in particular Parliament for over 460 years. It is founded in the twin doctrines of Parliamentary supremacy and separation of powers. Although today there are many scholars and other authorities which have questioned the clear distinction in the roles of the executive, the legislative and the judiciary, and their roles in law making with regards to their primacy and function; despite all the criticisms, changes and amendments, it can be argued that the Parliament still bears the primary responsibility to make laws with the contribution of the other arms of Government.