Parliamentary sovereignty and the politics of law-making

Foran, M. (2021) Parliamentary sovereignty and the politics of law-making. [Website]

Abstract

Parliamentary sovereignty has traditionally been understood to mean that Parliament is free to enact legislation on any area of law that it chooses, and that Acts of the U.K. Parliament take precedence over subordinate legislation, regulation, or common law rule. Understood this way, parliamentary sovereignty is a constitutional principle that is couched explicitly in legal terms: it is a legal principle with legal effect, speaking to other legal entities within our constitutional order regarding how they are to exercise their legal functions in light of legislation passed by Parliament. In essence, it is a doctrine of legislative supremacy which honours Parliament’s constitutional role by according its enactments their due authority. On this view, no discernible distinction exists between parliamentary sovereignty and Parliament’s law-making powers because sovereignty describes the scope and weight of those very powers.

• Item Type: Website
• Keywords: Constitutional law, parliamentary sovereignty, legislation.
• Status: Published
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Foran, Dr Michael
• Authors: Foran, M.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Law
• Publisher: UK Constitutional Law Association