The Landmark Case Of Entick V Errington Marks The Triumph Of The Principle Of Legality

Judge Tracey had regard to Project Blue Sky Inc v Australian Broadcasting Authority, in relation to issues with the construction of statutes. The case proposed that in order to define the purpose of a legislation, the extent and aim of the whole statute and the language of the relevant provision should be taken into consideration. Similarly, in “The Engineers Case” the court stated that the language of a statute should be examined in its ordinary and natural sense in order to understand the intent of Parliament behind making it.

The Australian Constitution is a rich amalgam of various classical political principles. The concepts of the Rule of Law and the doctrine of the Separation of Powers evident in Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws are both salient examples of political theses that are central to Australian Constitutional Law. The structure of the Constitution itself and decisions of the High Court of Australia unequivocally validate the entrenchment of the doctrine separation of powers in the Commonwealth Constitution . In particular, the High Court has applied this with relative rigour with respect to the separation of judicial power. The separation of the judicial power is fundamentally critical to upholding the rule of law. The High Court in Wilson v Minister for Aboriginal Affairs noted that “the separation of the judicial function…advances two constitutional objectives: the guarantee of liberty and, to that end, the independence of Chapter III judges” . Kitto J in R v Davidson also identified that the judiciary should be subject to no other authority but the law itself . This is a critical aspect ensuring the concept of legal equality is upheld. Therefore, its role clearly extends to providing checks and balances on the exercise of power by the legislative and executive arms of government . This ensures the liberty of the law and limits the abuse of the judicial system. Judicial Power is defined as “the power which every sovereign must of necessity have to decide between its subjects

Another institution that protects our rights is shown by this case, the principle of separation of powers is on display, simply put the principle of the separation of powers refers to the three different branches of government (Executive, Legislative, Judicial) and how they provide for a system of checks and balances for one another (Donald Carper, 2011) ensuring all parts act within the scope of their powers. This is outlined by the fact that the actions of the executive where investigated by the courts to see if their actions were in compliance with the Australian Constitution and other relevant legislation passed, by ensuring that the government’s actions were in accordance with the rules stated in the constitution it was ensured that the government acted within its scope and there was no abuse of power, because if this system of checks and balances did not exist than there would be no way to stop one of the bodies from overstretching and doing something that is outside of their power, we need to hold institutions accountable in order to ensure people’s rights are protected and governments cannot implement any policy that they wish. Individuals may disagree about the outcomes of particular cases but it is vital to our democracy and our rights that all the outcomes of cases are based on the Constitution and the relevant legislation, by having everything follow a set guideline and by having systems to enforce these guidelines we ensure institutions

Manifesto sees the decision of the supreme court as “clear abuse of judicial power” (1).

xiii) Influence of EU ensures that altering UK constitution is hard – cannot be incompatible

It is recognised that Australia’s System of decision making in the court is in need of reform, if the

first look at the validity of the court and of the entity of authority itself.

A trust can only be enforceable if it is sufficiently certain. The three certainties of a trust must coincide for a trust to become valid. Absence of any of the uncertainties makes a trust invalid from the start. The three certainties are certainty of the subject matter, certainty of intention and certainty of the objects. All these certainties must be established to make a trust valid. The purpose of the certainty requirement of trusts is to ensure compliance with the intentions of the settlor. For a trust to be enforced, there must be an individual who can compel the trustee to enforce the trust. The trust should also be capable of being implemented for the benefit of a beneficiary. The certainty requirement ensures that a trust is capable of being implemented failure to which would render the concept of trusts pointless.

“Parliamentary sovereignty is no longer, if it ever was, absolute” (Lord Hope). Discuss with reference to at least three challenges to the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. Parliamentary sovereignty is the concept that Parliament has the power to repeal, amend or create any law it wishes and therefore no body in the UK can challenge its legal validity. There are many people who would argue that this is a key principle to the UK Constitution, on the other hand, there are those who strongly believe that this idea is one of the past, and that the idea of the UK Parliament being sovereign is false. One of these people is Lord Hope, who said “Parliamentary sovereignty is no longer, if it ever was, absolute”. During the last 50 years there have been a variety of developments that have proved to be a challenge for the legitimacy of parliamentary sovereignty, and the ones which will be examined in this essay are: the devolution of powers to the Scottish Parliament; The United Kingdom’s entry into the European Union in 1973; and finally the power of judicial review. Starting with the devolution of powers, these challenges will all be evaluated when discussing whether or not the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty applies to the United Kingdom. Westminster’s sovereignty has been gradually diminishing over time as varying amounts of power have been devolved to Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland. In this essay, the devolution of powers to the Scottish Parliament will be

This essay will explore the changes that Article 263 TFEU has had to the accessibility of judicial review before the CJEU as well as assessing whether the reforms introduced were sufficient enough in improving a private parties ability to bring government decisions under scrutiny. In addition, the judgments of the Court in Inuit and Microban will be considered. This essay will analyse present criticisms of the definition set out in the two cases and the overall effect of the new article.

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.

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 Contract requires several elements in order to be considered enforceable. However for the purpose of this essay we would explore one of these elements in order to effectively understand the controversial cases of Williams v Roffey Brothers and Nicholls (contractors) Ltd (1990) and Stilk v Myrick (1804). Before going any further one should briefly understand the doctrine of Consideration. Despite the vast amount of content written, the doctrine of consideration is still to this day unclear due to the inconsistency of the courts and its application of necessary rules. Consideration refers to that which the law deems as valuable in that the promisor receives from the promise that which was promised. In other words, it is the exchange of something of value between the parties in a contract. One should be mindful that in English law, every promise may not be legally enforceable; it requires the court to distinguish between are enforceable and non-enforceable obligations. This brings us to the controversial cases of Stilk v Myrick and Williams v the Roffery brothers. Many argue that that the case of Williams was wrongly decided leading to impairments in the rule initially established in Stilk v Myrick. This essay seek to analyse and critique the cases of Stilk v Myrick and Williams v Roffey Brothers and also highlight whether or not the new rule of Practical benefit lead to serious impairments in later cases.

The most influential definition of the rule of law is that of the A.V. Dicey. In his work he defines the rule of law to be composed of three central elements. The first element states that “no man is punishable or can be made to suffer in body or goods except for a distinct breach of law established in the ordinary legal manner before the ordinary courts”. This element is designed to deny to governments any rights to make secret or arbitrary laws, or retrospective penal laws, and to limit the discretionary powers of government” . In order to comply with the requirement, it is stated that the rule must be open, clear, accessible and certain. This is supported by Lord Bingham as he argued that the law must be accessible, clear and predictable as wide discretionary powers would lead to arbitrariness which is against the rule of law. This principle is further illustrated by

If the judiciary are intentionally straying into matters of governmental policy then they as unelected, impartial adjudicators should only do so when cases arise that call for such action, potentially when governmental action threatens the rule of law – a right afforded to them as a constitutional check on governmental power. While the judiciary can be viewed as in a constant skirmish with the Legislature and the Executive much of the judiciary’s power to interoperate statutes liberally comes from powers delegated to it by parliament .