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The Individual and the State — Durham University notes | caselaw

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Notes/Durham University/The Individual and the State

The Individual and the State

The Individual and the State on the Durham University LLB Law (Year 1). The constitutional relationship between the citizen, Parliament, the executive and the courts — and the grounds on which government action can be challenged.

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Sources and nature of the constitution

The United Kingdom constitution is legal, political, historical, and institutional rather than merely textual.

Theories of parliamentary sovereignty

Parliamentary sovereignty is less a slogan than a contested rule of constitutional recognition.

Constitutional statutes and implied repeal (Thoburn)

Thoburn recasts sovereignty by distinguishing ordinary enactments from statutes of constitutional status.

The rule of law — Bingham and after

Bingham’s eight principles remain the modern grammar of lawful government and judicial control.

Separation of powers

Separation of powers in the UK is a disciplined practice of restraint, not a written blueprint.

Royal prerogative and Miller (Nos 1 and 2)

Prerogative power survives only where law, statute and constitutional principle permit its use.

Devolution and the Sewel Convention

Devolution qualifies political power without displacing the legal sovereignty of the Westminster Parliament.

Human Rights Act 1998 — sections 3 and 4

Sections 3 and 4 make rights adjudication constitutional without making courts sovereign.

Common law constitutional rights

Common law rights are constitutional not because entrenched, but because courts demand unmistakable authority.

Constitutional conventions

Conventions supply constitutional obligation where law deliberately stops short of compulsion.

Freedom of expression and assembly

Expression and protest test the legality, necessity and constitutional confidence of executive restraint.

The changing constitution and reform

Constitutional reform in the United Kingdom is incremental, political, and increasingly judicially articulated.

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