Government Sovereignty

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Government sovereignty; the rule of law and the separation of powers govern the public law and with it, the relationship between the state and the individuals that comprise it.

According to AV Dicey, the rule of law can be subsumed into three pillars. Firstly everyone, regardless of status, race or heritage, is equal in the eyes of the law and hence should be treated the same with respect to criminal law. Secondly, that the principles of British law come from ordinary, judge-made law, which bind individuals with certain rights and obligations. Finally, the law must be preferred to an arbitrary power, which forms its opinions on a subjective standpoint alone.
Without one, the rule of law is incomplete.
Furthermore according to Dicey, the …show more content…

For example, the Terrorism Act 2006, which changed the maximum duration that someone could be detained for without being charged to 28 days, can be see not take precedence over the rule of law by undermining it. Furthermore due to the UK not having a written constitution, there is no document that can tell us what powers government has or, more importantly, doesn't have, and no UK judgement specifically discredits the idea of parliamentary sovereignty. One must also consider that Parliament has influence over the rue of law. Even though the rule of law means to establish clarity of what is and isn't allowed in the eyes of the law, Parliament can pass new legislation to alter this, and hence influence the rule of law. An example of this is the Criminal Evidence (Witness Anonymity) Act 2008 which nullified the defendants right to know the identity of his witness by replacing it with a regime where witness anonymity orders could be used if circumstances allowed or required them to be …show more content…

Under this Act, UK courts must interpret legislation, “as far as it is possible to do so” in order to enforce the provisions in the ECHR as per s.3(1) HRA 1998. So whilst it is not explicitly stated in the HRA that the courts have to adhere to the ECHR, they will consider the domestic law position, international law position (e.g.: past ECtHR judgments) and wider political issues when making their decisions.
Furthermore the idea behind the sovereignty of parliament is simply a legal theory and then, in reality, no institution has the absolute power to do as it wishes, as each organ of the government is “kept in check” by the others und by the morals of the people that they encompass. This is the held within the dicta in Jackson v Attorney General, where Lord Steyn stated that if the Parliament were to remove the courts power of ‘judicial review’, then the courts would be within their right to refuse to follow the legislation.
Therefore we can say that parliament possesses unlimited power, at least in theory, but in practice, it is unable to fully exercise that power and hence the sovereignty of parliament is subordinate to the rule of law.

In conclusion I would argue that one cannot say that one principle of the public law is subordinate another, but rather that they overlap and complement each

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