The Main Features of Direct Rule and Its Strengths and Weaknesses
Direct Rule was enforced as a temporary expedient to Northern Ireland
ruling problems in March of 1972. Direct rule meant that the Secretary
of state and his Junior Ministers ran Northern Ireland directly from
Westminster. The solution was imposed due to the discrimination
against Catholics by the Unionists who ruled Northern Ireland.
The Secretary Of State John Reid has a seat in the British Cabinet. He
is responsible for the conduct of policy in Northern Ireland and for
representing and defending the interests of Northern Ireland both at
Westminster and when necessary at an international stage.
The role Northern Ireland Office is to support the Secretary of State
for Northern Ireland in securing a lasting peace, based on the Good
Friday Agreement, in which the rights and identities of all traditions
in Northern Ireland are fully respected and safeguarded and in which a
safe, stable, just, open and tolerant society can thrive and prosper.
This involves the work of the Junior ministers at the moment there are
four and they are also dedicated to helping the Secretary of State
through his work.
Direct Rule contains three types of legislation:
Excepted: Matters always beyond the remit of any devolved
administration e.g. currency and foreign policy.
Reserved: Matters that concern issues such as policing they would not
normally be the responsibility of a devolved local assembly.
Transferred: These are neither excepted or reserved and are the
responsibility of a local assembly.
Under Direct Rule there are two ways in which laws are passed by
either acts of parliament or by ministerial decree which take 40 days
to become law after being sent to parliament.
Many see the name 'Direct Rule' as a misnomer as there are many things
that 'dilute' it. Two examples come along with legislature. There is
an Inter-Governmental Conference held between the British and Irish
governments at this conference the matters in Northern Ireland are
discussed between the governments and amended until an agreement is
The Exclusionary Rule made its first appearance in the judicial system when it was put there by the Supreme Court thanks to Weeks v. United States. At first the Exclusionary Rule was only used in federal cases, only after fifty years of being adopted by the Supreme Court was it used in state cases as well. Before Weeks v. United States, any and all evidence that was acquired illegally or that violated the peoples constitutional rights was still used, if it was practical to the circumstance. The definition of the Exclusionary Rule is, “a rule that forbids the introduction of illegally obtained evidence in a criminal trial (The Free Dictionary, 2014).” The Fourth Amendment reads “…the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized (Law, 2008).”
The effectiveness of Westminster Parliament in holding the executive to account relies on a number of variables, arguably, the most important being the degree of the government’s majority. Other variables include the unity of the party, the presence of a foreign war or the presence of a hostile media. This being said, there are also a number of mechanisms by which Parliament is able to hold the executive accountable.
Parliamentary sovereignty, a core principle of the UK's constitution, essentially states that the Parliament is the ultimate legal authority, which possesses the power to create, modify or end any law. The judiciary cannot question its legislative competence, and a Parliament is not bound by former legislative provisions of earlier Parliaments. The ‘rule of law’ on the other hand, is a constitutional doctrine which primarily governs the operation of the legal system and the manner in which the powers of the state are exercised. However, since the Parliament is capable of making any law whatsoever, the concept of the rule of law poses a contradiction to the principle of parliamentary supremacy, entailing that Parliament is not bound by the Rule of Law, and it can exercise power arbitrarily.
The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees an individual’s protection against unlawful searches and seizures by law enforcement by providing that a search warrant with specific detailing information, based on “good faith” and probable cause, must be provided prior to investigation. By doing so, an individual may be secure that “his home is his castle” and his “person, papers, and effects” (The Constitution of the United States, Amendment 4) is protected as well.
The Government 's use of its prerogative powers has nothing to do with devolution. The conduct of foreign affairs is a "reserved" matter so that the devolved governments have no competence over it.
The exclusionary rule is one of the utmost controversial rulings in our judicial system. The exclusionary rule can be best defined as “the principle based on federal Constitutional Law that evidence illegally seized by law enforcement officers in violation of a suspect 's right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures cannot be used against the suspect in a criminal prosecution.” (The Free Dictionary , 1981-2015) The exclusionary rule is not to be mistaken as being intertwined within the constitution for it is not a part of it, instead it is a remedy specially designed by the courts to reconcile violations against a defendant’s 4th amendment rights. Although it’s chief purpose maybe deeply rooted into the 4th amendment, but its protective
The Good Friday Agreement and Its Help of Progression in Northern Ireland On 10th April 1998 the Good Friday agreement was signed. It was only
According to the United States constitution, The Exclusionary Rule is a law that prohibits the use of illegally obtained evidences in a criminal trial. For example “Boyd v US 1886” “An act to amend the customs revenue laws,” &c., “which section authorizes a court of the United States, in revenue cases, on motion of the government attorney, to require the defendant or claimant to produce in court his private books, invoice and papers, or else the allegations of the attorney to be taken as confessed: Held, to be unconstitutional and void a applied to suits for penalties or to establish a forfeiture of the party’s goods, as being repugnant to the Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution.(116 US 616 Scotus)” The main purpose of this rule was to ensure police do not conduct an excessive amount of unlawful searches in order to obtain evidence for a case. It was an important rule that was put into effect in the early 1900s to protect individual’s rights to a fair trial.
Q1) The Apprendi Rule sixth amendment extended the mandatory minimum sentencing and the roles of judges and juries. In Harris 2002, the court emphasized the policy on mandatory of minimums should not be compromised by Apprendi rule. However, the conclusion was at stake in the Alleynes case (Priester, 2009). This case called for sixth amendment of the Apprendi rule. This amendment implied that any case that had a longer sentence than the required in law should exist with the jury. This extension is credited to different reasons as discussed.
Before going into explaining the exceptions to the exclusionary rule, let’s get a better understanding on what the exclusionary rule is. The Exclusionary Rule is meant to deter any illegal police conduct and to not be punished for any errors that are made during the process of doing their work. It’s also stated that the exclusionary rule also bars the admission of any evidence obtained by the government which is in violation of the constitution (Legal Information Institute, n.d.). Such rule mostly involves cases of search and seizure, arrests, interrogations and stop-and-frisk violations (Lyman, pg. 88). With that being said, the rule is to make sure that everything is clear cut when it comes to any arrest and going to trial. One does
The Exclusionary rule requires that any evidence taken into custody be obtained by police using methods that violates an individual constitutional rights must be excluded from use in a criminal prosecution against that individual. This rule is judicially imposed and arose relatively recently in the development of the U.S. legal system. Under the common law, the seizure of evidence by illegal means did not affect its admission in court. Any evidence, however obtained, was admitted as long as it satisfied other evidentiary criteria for admissibility, such as relevance and trustworthiness. The exclusionary rule was developed in 1914 and applied to the case of Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383, and was limited to a prohibition on the use of evidence illegally obtain by federal law enforcement officers. Not until 1949, in the caw of Wolf v. Colorado, 38 U.S. 25, 27-28, did the U.S. Supreme Court take the first step toward applying the exclusionary rule to the states by ruling that the Fourth Amendment was applicable to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment which states: the security of one’s privacy against arbitrary intrusion by the police-which is at the core of the Fourth Amendment- is basic to a free society. It is therefore implicit in the “concept of ordered liberty” and as such enforceable against the States through the Due Process Clause.
After 6 months of researching constitutional documents, court cases, and academic journals, I have found evidence that both supports and counters my argument, stating that the lack of representation in Washington D.C. and the US Virgin Islands violates the true intent of the United States Constitution. On the topic of my findings regarding constitutional documents, I first looked at documents, written by some of the founding fathers regarding the issue. In the Federalist No. 43, James Madison addresses the federal district known as Washington D.C., and says “as a municipal legislature for local purposes, derived from their own suffrages, will of course be allowed them.” (The Federalist Papers, No. 51) James Madison is referencing the citizens residing in the federal district, and says
In the federal and State courts, evidence illegally obtained by law-enforcement officers cannot be acknowledged in a criminal court for prosecution, should the accused objects to its admission (Paulsen 1963). In my humble opinion, the exclusionary rule should be applied to any evidence or person obtained illegally. As a police officer, we must respect all the laws of evidence whether we like them or not.
This exercises the idea of independence within ‘different functions of government’; it is represented by the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. Separating the three prevents a dangerous occurrence where power is entirely centralized in one group.... ... middle of paper ... ... Carl F. Stychin and Linda Mulcahy, Legal Methods and Systems, (4th edn, Sweet & Maxwell 2010).
In summation, British government has evolved from a primitive monarchy to a sophisticated parliamentary democracy in our modern world. Through several revolutions, reforms, signing of official documents, battles, and power imbalances, Britain has come to be one of the most powerful nations in our modern world (98). Their central idea of common law and rational-legal authority has been the rope that ties British history to the modern Britain (98). Its ideals have been the central theme to power and authority in the country throughout hundreds of years that have transitioned Britain into a powerful welfare state with strong aspects of rule, citizenship, noblesse oblige, and common law (98).