Parliamentary Sovereignty Essay

Dicey described Parliamentary supremacy, he stated that "Parliament" has "the right to make or unmake any law whatever; and further, that no person or body is recognised by the law of England as having a right to override or set aside the legislation of Parliament,”. The doctrine of Parliamentary sovereignty is centeral to the constitution, however, there are many constitutional intruments as shown in the judgement by the Supreme Court in R(HS2 Action Alliance), including the European Communities Act 1972 and the Human Rights Act 1998 and the 1911 and 1949 Parliament Acts that can be seen to limit this sovereignty. In this essay I will discuss how the implementation of these statutes can be seen to have the ability to overpower original

This Act can be seen as having the ability to overrule original Parliamentary Acts and therefore limit Parliament in the laws they can and cannot pass and so subsequently challenge Diceys doctrine. It can be seen to limit Parliamentary sovereignty by s4(2) of the Act, this states that all legislation passed by Parliament is required to be interpreted and given effect so far as is possible to comply with convention rights. In the event of incompatibility with existing legislation, under Section 4 of the Act ‘if the court is satisfied that the provision is incompatible with a convention right, it may be a declaration of that incompatibility’. This therefore shows how modern changes such as the passing of the Human Rights Act can limit Parliamentary sovereignty. This is because parliament cannot pass legislation unless it complies with the HRA and in addition the Courts can declare legislation, passed by Parliament, incompatible. This can be shown by A v Secretary of State for Home Department in 2005, where individuals were held without prospect of trial under Section 23 of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act. This act was subsequently repealed as it was incompatible with the Human Rights Act, therefore showing how Diceys doctrine is out of place as certain Acts such as the HRA has the power to ‘overrule’ Parliamentary Acts. However, to some extent Parliament is still sovereign, s4(6) states that ‘A declaration [of incompatibility] under this section: (a) does not affect the validity, continuing operation or enforcement of the provision in respect of which it is given’, therefore the Act is still in force whether or not the courts declare it incompatible and so demonstrating how it does not fully limit parliaments sovereignty, this can be shown where prisoners being banned from voting is incompatible