Public Law - The UK Constitution: Constitutional Fundamentals and Sources of
the Constitution
What is Public Law?
Public Law: law concerned with interactions between individuals and the state.
- Constitutional Law:
- Study of ‘political’ institutions, what they are, their powers, and the
principles on which they are founded and operated
- Administrative Law:
- Legal process governing disputes individuals have over decisions made
by those exercising their executive functions
- E.g. judicial review: when a citizen asks a judge to challenge and
examine the lawfulness of a decision that has been made by the
government.
- Check on Executive - the means of complaint for individuals
who believe that government officials (that is, those making
decisions that fall within the executive function of
government) have made decisions or acted in a way that’s
unlawful or in breach of legal rules
- Civil Liberties:
- Study of human rights, and how individuals’ liberties are governed and
infringed upon by the state
Constitution:
- In the wider sense, political constitutions:
1) set out what the institutions for state (or gov’t) are
2) how these institutions operate and interact
3) guarantee certain rights to its citizens
- In the narrow sense - a single written document
UK Constitution:
, - It is ‘unwritten’ in the sense that there is no single authoritative constitutional
document in which the rules which establish and regulate the government are
laid out
- There are four sources of the UK constitution - legislation, case/common law,
RP, constitutional conventions.
Core principles of the UK Constitution:
- The rule of law
- Separation of powers
- Supremacy of Parliament
- A common law doctrine - the courts must prioritise legislation created by
Parliament over common law
- Parliament has the right to introduce or repeal law as it sees fit, and
this right - resulting legislation - cannot be overridden (e.g. by the
courts)
- AV Dicey, ‘An Introduction to the Study of the Law of the
Constitution, 1885
Different forms of constitution:
- Republican
- Presidential
- Head of state (e.g. President/figurehead)
- E.g. USA, Germany
- Monarchical
- Parliamentary
- Head of state chosen from legislature, and hereditary monarch
- The PM is an MP (elected into Parliament)
- Either constitutional monarchy (UK, Sweden) or powerful (Saudi
Arabia)
Sources of the UK Constitution:
Statute
- Acts of Parliament of constitutional importance - no fixed criteria for this (no
concept of Higher Law due to unwritten/uncodified nature of the UK constitution)
- Primary legislation: laws made and passed by Parliament
- Secondary legislation: laws made by other bodies/Ministers (not Parliament)
the Constitution
What is Public Law?
Public Law: law concerned with interactions between individuals and the state.
- Constitutional Law:
- Study of ‘political’ institutions, what they are, their powers, and the
principles on which they are founded and operated
- Administrative Law:
- Legal process governing disputes individuals have over decisions made
by those exercising their executive functions
- E.g. judicial review: when a citizen asks a judge to challenge and
examine the lawfulness of a decision that has been made by the
government.
- Check on Executive - the means of complaint for individuals
who believe that government officials (that is, those making
decisions that fall within the executive function of
government) have made decisions or acted in a way that’s
unlawful or in breach of legal rules
- Civil Liberties:
- Study of human rights, and how individuals’ liberties are governed and
infringed upon by the state
Constitution:
- In the wider sense, political constitutions:
1) set out what the institutions for state (or gov’t) are
2) how these institutions operate and interact
3) guarantee certain rights to its citizens
- In the narrow sense - a single written document
UK Constitution:
, - It is ‘unwritten’ in the sense that there is no single authoritative constitutional
document in which the rules which establish and regulate the government are
laid out
- There are four sources of the UK constitution - legislation, case/common law,
RP, constitutional conventions.
Core principles of the UK Constitution:
- The rule of law
- Separation of powers
- Supremacy of Parliament
- A common law doctrine - the courts must prioritise legislation created by
Parliament over common law
- Parliament has the right to introduce or repeal law as it sees fit, and
this right - resulting legislation - cannot be overridden (e.g. by the
courts)
- AV Dicey, ‘An Introduction to the Study of the Law of the
Constitution, 1885
Different forms of constitution:
- Republican
- Presidential
- Head of state (e.g. President/figurehead)
- E.g. USA, Germany
- Monarchical
- Parliamentary
- Head of state chosen from legislature, and hereditary monarch
- The PM is an MP (elected into Parliament)
- Either constitutional monarchy (UK, Sweden) or powerful (Saudi
Arabia)
Sources of the UK Constitution:
Statute
- Acts of Parliament of constitutional importance - no fixed criteria for this (no
concept of Higher Law due to unwritten/uncodified nature of the UK constitution)
- Primary legislation: laws made and passed by Parliament
- Secondary legislation: laws made by other bodies/Ministers (not Parliament)
