Foundation Of The Us Constitution Essay

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The foundation of the UK constitution is built upon A.V. Dicey’s orthodox theory on the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty, that parliament has ‘the right to make or unmake any law’, Parliament cannot bind its successors, and that no institution has ‘the right to override the legislation of Parliament’ . The great benefit of the supremacy of parliament is that Acts of Parliament created by the democratically elected legislature, must be obeyed by the unelected judges. Although parliamentary sovereignty refers to shared powers, between the Monarchy, House of Commons (HoC) and House of Lords (HoL), through the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949, the HoL lost its power of veto, and the HoC effectively enhanced its powers as the main body of government. …show more content…

The EU doctrine of supremacy over domestic law was first outlined in the Costa case, particularly s 2(4) ‘provisions of EU Law should enjoy primacy over any conflicting provision of national law’ . As Lord Bridge addressed, any effect of constraint placed upon parliamentary sovereignty was preconceived as the UK’s enactment of the EU Communities Act was ‘entirely voluntary’ . The Human Rights Act (HRA) 1998, rather than creating new rights solved the inconsistencies undermining parliamentary sovereignty. The sovereignty of parliament was however maintained, under s 3 the courts cannot void primary legislation, but rather under s 4 ‘issue a declaration of incompatibility’ . This measured refusal of the transfer of invalidation powers to the judiciary upholds the doctrine of sovereignty by maintaining the judgment of the elected branch over the view of unelected judges. Parliament has maintained the power to withdraw from the EU and can at any time vote to repeal the HRA, effectively abolishing community law supremacy. Recently the EU Act 2011, contains that under s 18, supremacy is still enjoyed by community law over national law because the 1972 Act makes it so, implying that parliament is sovereign and reaffirming that EU law within the UK can be

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