Residuary Power Art.248

'The House of Lords is now more effective than the House of Commons in checking government power'. Discuss

“In theory Parliament has total power. It is sovereign” were the words of Dicey in his book Law of the Constitution. A.V. Dicey was a British jurist and constitutional theorist in the 20th century who was adamant and argued extensively about the absolute nature of sovereignty of the Parliament which he derived from Coke and Blackstone. He had said “"Parliament" has

In the Unites States of America Federalism is the basic structure of the American government; it is the distribution and balance of powers between the National government and the States government. In order to obtain a compromise between those who wanted stronger state government and those who preferred a stronger national government the founding fathers arranged and settled for a federal system rather than the alternatives of a unitary or confederal system. While both National and State governments each have specific powers and authority, they also share certain powers and must be able to cooperate effectively with each other.

When it comes to federalism, it is not the easiest to pinpoint the exact meaning. Federalism can be defined as the distribution of power in an organization between a central authority and a voting member of a community (Merriam, Webster). It can be described as one of two fundamental organizational principles of the U.S Constitution. The other basic organizational principle, such as separation of powers, involves the distribution of powers within the National Government. It is said that federalism is the single most important protection for our freedom ( Nagel, 181). There are many different types of federalism, including Dual, Cooperative, Regulated, and New federalism.

Federalism is power divided between central and state government. The state governments can establish schools. The central government can declare war. The state government powers are local and the central government have nationwide powers (Federalism venn diagram). It provides double security by giving both the government and states the same/equal important power, Federalism guards against tyranny because it ensures that two levels share, one can’t accumulate.

(England) was that the power of the legislature "... is limited to the public good of the

There is a central government and more than twenty five state governments. Under the India Constitution there are three lists, federal list, state list and the concurrent list. Things covered under the first two lists are the exclusive domain of the concerned parties but under the third central government can overrule the state governments on matters of national interest. Judiciary is independent with the power of judicial review. Every state has a high court above subordinate courts presided by the Supreme Court of India. Under the Constitution the functions of Legislature, executive and judiciary have been clearl defined. (Shukla)

Federalism is a system of government in which the state and federal governments share power. Doc A is an excerpt from Federalist #51, written by James Madison in 1788. This paper was one of 85 that were written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay to try to convince the states to ratify the constitution. According to A, “In the compound republic of America the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments and the portion allotted to each subdivided among distinct and separate departments. Hence a double security arises to the rights of the people.” The quote from Doc A shows that power is divided among the federal and state governments. It is further divided by having 3 branches that equally share the power of the one government. Therefore, the constitution guards against tyranny by making the governments share the power of

There have been many complaints and theories of how the Supreme Court has a tendency to act as a "supra-legislature" (Woll 153). It is proposed that the Supreme Court takes the

Federalism is our country's system of government, in this system powers are divided between the national government and the states, they also share some powers together. Federalism helps the nation work properly to where the power is divided pretty equally. This system includes powers that belong to the National Government, State Governments, and Shared Powers, which are powers shared by both the National Government and State Governments.

Parliament can however override and replace the prerogative by statute e.g. The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. The Courts are capable of judicial review of these powers as was held unanimously in the GCHQ case. Only prerogative acts, which don’t involve high policy best determined by the executives will be reviewed.

Some judges in their obiter dicta have declared their inclination to disregard the Parliament’s legislative objectives, and therefore limit parliamentary sovereignty if the rule of law is vulnerable or if the circumstances demand “a principle established on a different hypothesis of constitutionalism” . They have also suggested that, while the British Constitution is dominated by parliamentary sovereignty, “The rule of law enforced by the courts is the ultimate controlling factor on which our constitution is based” . This represents a possibility of stretching the dominance of the rule of law in constitutional law so that it becomes more powerful than parliamentary sovereignty in the British Constitution .

A majority of judges even said obiter that Parliament could not extend its lifetime beyond five years, even if the 1911 Act was to be expressly repealed and the extension bill then passed. That leads to the question if there are basic constitutional rules that parliament simply cannot change. Lord Steyn and Lord Woolf held that the courts might have to revisit the principle of parliamentary sovereignty, if Parliament sought ‘to abolish judicial review of flagrant abuse of power by government or even the role of the ordinary courts in standing between the executive and citizens’. In such an event, the court might have to ‘qualify’ the supremacy of Parliament, ‘a principle established on a different hypothesis of constitutionalism’.

Parliamentary Sovereignty is the concept that Parliament is the supreme legal authority in the United Kingdom. Kellerman, M. G. (2011) argues that since

Administrative Law (dealing with regulations) ‘is essentially judge made law’ and its outcomes are neither predictable nor its case law concise. Therefore while public law offers substantial protections against ‘arbitrary power’ of government it is not easily accessible to all. The courts have no power to strike down legislation (parliamentary law is supreme ) yet their power to strike down regulations is still only limited to acts ultra vires. The judiciary is an effective check on executive power (See Fitzgerald v Muldoon 1976) but its checks on the Legislature are lacking; ‘notorious’ parliamentary privilege show that the courts wish ‘not to adjudicate matters determined within the walls of the