Assess The Role Of The Judges In The Uk

Human Rights Act 1998 – is an Act that gives legal effect in the UK to certain fundamental rights and freedoms contained in

One strength of the UK constitution is the flexibility that it has, for the reason that the constitution is uncodified or unwritten and is therefore not entrenched in law. Due to the fact that the UK’s constitution is uncodified or unwritten, it has an opportunity to modernise itself to the ever changing society or any other new circumstances that may arise. An example of the flexibility of the UK’s

Human Rights Act 1998 - The Human Rights Act means that residents of the United Kingdom will now be able to seek help from the courts if they believe that their human rights have been infringed.

Human rights act 1998 – specifies and enforces the rights of individuals and if these

“Some lawyers have been attracted to the argument that the union legislation placed constraints on the power of the UK Parliament to legislate, and that the UK Parliament might be unable to alter at least its most important terms. While there are powerful arguments against this view, - it continues to have its supporters. It famously received some judicial support from Lord Cooper in MacCormick v Lord Advocate, and has been referred to in several subsequent cases. However, there has been no case in which a Scottish court has questioned the validity of an Act of Parliament on these grounds. Indeed, whether an Act of the UK Parliament is compatible with the union legislation was treated as, in principle, a non-justiciable issue in MacCormick. However, supporters of the argument have taken comfort from the fact that in MacCormick, Gibson and Pringle Scottish judges reserved their opinion on what would be the case if legislation purported to amend 'fundamental provisions', for example, by abolishing the Church of Scotland or the Court of Session, or by replacing the Scottish system of private law with English

Both statutory interpretation and the Human Rights Act are a doctrine of precedent by which law is changed and justice is served. The doctrine of precedent is an essential principle of English legal system, which is a form of reasoning, interpreting and decision making formed by case law. It suggests that precedents not only have persuasive authority but must also be shadowed when similar situations arise. Any rule or principle declared by a higher court must be followed in future cases. In short the courts and tribunals are bound within prearranged restrictions by prior decisions of other superior courts. All the judges are also obliged to follow the set-up precedents established by prior decisions which is called Stare decisis. Making decisions according to precedent helps achieve two objectives. Initially it aids to maintain a system of stable laws which gives predictability to the law and affords a degree of safety for individual rights. Moreover, it ensures that the law progresses only in accordance with the developing perceptions of the community. Therefore, it more accurately mirrors the morals and prospects of the community that we live in.

The Human Rights Act 1998 (also known as the Act or the HRA) came into force in the United Kingdom in October 2000. It is composed of a series of sections that have the effect of codifying the protections in the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law. All public bodies (such as courts, police, local governments, hospitals, publicly funded schools, and others) and other bodies carrying out public functions have to comply with the Convention rights. The Human Rights Act protects individuals from torture (mental, physical or both), inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment and deportation or extradition (being sent to another country to face criminal charges) if there is a real risk that they will face

Human Rights Act 1998 – Gives further legal status to the standards on Human Rights that was set out in 1948 with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This highlighted the principle that all humans have the same rights and should be treated equally. This act also sets out the rights of all individuals and allows individuals to take action against authorities when their rights are affected.

Parliamentary sovereignty and the rule of law are both concepts that are key to shaping the British constitution, however there is ambiguity as to which concept is the heart of the UK’s constitutional arrangement in the recent years.

The reform of the Human Rights Act can illustrate that the constitutional reform did not go far enough. In 1998, the Blair government announced that the citizens ' rights would be safeguarded and strengthened through incorporating the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law. However, this created a problem as the UK now has two sets of rights – those built up under Common Law and those in the Human Rights Act. These two sets of rights may conflict and, in addition, cases can be taken using these rights to both the UK Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights (which is the supreme court for the European Convention on Human Rights). The UK judiciary is divided on how to resolve this issue.

The UK’s unwritten constitution, formed of Acts of Parliament [AoP], Royal Prerogative [RP], Constitutional Convention [CC] and Case Law [CL], prompts much debate about the ease of which constitutional change can be introduced. A written constitution is, by definition and practice, hard to alter however it remains to be seen whether it is any easier to change an unwritten

The public has stated various times that humankind is entitled to various things, one of which is liberties. Everyman is entitled to liberties in the British kingdom and even in the United States, this is different because in the olden days people didn’t have liberties. This is stated by saying that no man shall have “its liberties impaired”. This states that in society your liberties shall not be taken away. It relates to the topic by demonstrating how our society was changed to today with

Countless people within our world note the constitution of the United Kingdom as an admirable example of a democracy existing with an uncodified constitution, arguably one of only two in the world- seeing as there are at least several other countries that maintain uncodified features. Arguably there are several strengths to the UK constitution, such as its flexibility, the fact that it has democratic rule, implements effective government and that it is based on history and tradition. On the other hand, it debatably has its weaknesses: centralization, its occasional incoherency, lack of protection of rights and the rise of elective dictatorships have backed criticism. Firstly the main strength of the British constitution is its flexibility,

A constitution is a set of rules which may be written or unwritten, establishes the distribution of power in a political system, the limits of government jurisdiction, the rights of citizens and the method of amending the constitution itself. An uncodified constitution is unwritten, or at least not written all in one document. The constitution in the UK is found in a variety of sources which are mainly statute and common law, conventions and traditions, European law etc. There are arguments for the UK to both retain an uncodified constitution and to change this to a codified constitution like the USA. Some of the arguments for retaining the uncodified system are that; codification produces

The power to strike down Acts of Parliament is defined as the power to declare legislation invalid because it is unconstitutional. This paper will critically assess sections 3 and 4 of the HRA 1998 by defining them, reviewing case law surrounding their use, and by evaluating the powers that they give to the judiciary. By doing so, it will demonstrate that section 3 gives judges powers that are not significantly different from the power to strike down Acts of Parliament, whereas section 4 does not.