Tearing-up the constitution - law in action lecture notes

Tuesday, 22 October 2019

Tearing-up the constitution

Law in Action
Law, Politics, and the UK’s Changing Constitutional Arrangements..

UK of GB and NI
- Are a Sovereign state
- International legal personality = 1922 - ?? (present)
- Called GB (1701 - 1799)
- Called: UK of GB and I (1801 - 1922)

Federal or Unitary state?

UK can’t be ltered into either descriptions of state.

Devolution -
- Govt of Wales Act 1998; Govt of Wales Act 2006; Wales Act 2014; Wales
Act 2017
- Scotland Act 1998; Scotland Act 2012; Scotland Act 2016
- NI Act 1998; (devolution currently suspended)
The UK’s constitution:
- No single, codi ed document
- ‘British Exceptionalism’
- Variety of sources of the “UK Constitution”:
- Acts of Parliament, Common law & Royal Prerogative, Devolved &
delegated legislation, International law (treaty - and custom - based),
Constitutional conventions, Authoritative opinions

Three Branches of Govt in the UK:
- Legislative:
- House of Commons, HoL and the Monarch
- “Be it enacted by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the
advice and consent of the Lords spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in


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