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Parliamentary Sovereignty

Started by HuntingRoss, April 24, 2012, 09:43:43 PM

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HuntingRoss

Richard Tur's Lecture notes on Constitutional Law

"There have been many attempts in the literature to capture the essence of the doctrine [parliamentary sovereignty] in one apposite phrase. Some carry a self-conscious air of paradox such as the proposition that Parliament can do anything except bind its successors. The notion that Parliament can do anything except bind it successors is simultaneously an assertion and a denial of its omnipotence......"

http://users.ox.ac.uk/~lawf0013/P'SOV199.htm

"The rule that the courts cannot review Parliament is a fundamental rule of the common law which parliament cannot alter. After all, as they point out, Parliament could not, merely by passing an act, declare itself to be sovereign: sovereignty must be attributed to parliament by some higher rule which defines parliament and is therefore logically and authoritatively prior to parliament. But the impact of this argument is that there is at least one rule, deriving from the common law, which parliament cannot alter. That is a strange way to insist upon parliamentary sovereignty. And, of course, if there is one such common law rule immune from Parliamentary change why should there not be others ?"

http://users.ox.ac.uk/~lawf0013/P'SOV399.htm

Gotta love the logic here, succinct and inescapable.

Those that argue parliaments absolute sovereignty, deny it by arguing that parliament can not bind its successors. Therefore accepting the limitation of parliaments sovereignty.