The Constitutional Legitimacy of Law Officers in the United Kingdom

The Constitutional Legitimacy of Law Officers in the United Kingdom

Author: Conor McCormick

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2022-07-14

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1509944133

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This book provides a detailed account of each law officer's functions and draws on that account as the basis for a conceptual analysis of their constitutional legitimacy. In recent years, the constitutional legitimacy of law officers has been questioned repeatedly because of recurring controversies surrounding the discharge of their varied functions. Indeed, it has become increasingly clear that those functions enable law officers to play a highly influential part in the regulation and exercise of public power throughout the United Kingdom. McCormick argues that the most persuasive framework for analysing the offices which make up this diverse regime involves concentrating on the constitutional values of independence, accountability and trust which underpin it. Both aspects of the book – namely the explanation of individual functions and the conceptual analysis of collective legitimacy – are written in a holistic way which encompasses critical analyses about the Attorney General and Solicitor General for England and Wales; the Counsel General for Wales; the Lord Advocate, Solicitor General and Advocate General for Scotland, as well as the Attorney General and Advocate General for Northern Ireland.


Law in Northern Ireland

Law in Northern Ireland

Author: Brice Dickson

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2018-06-28

Total Pages: 521

ISBN-13: 1509919279

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Law in Northern Ireland is the essential textbook for all students of Northern Ireland's legal system. Changes to this new edition – some of them substantial – have been made to every section, taking full account of five years of developments. The book explores the evolution of law-making in Northern Ireland before going on to explain the relevant constitutional arrangements, how to identify and interpret applicable sources of law, and what are the fundamental rules and principles of public law, criminal law and private law, highlighting where appropriate what may be unusual about them. It contextualises the myriad of legal institutions operating in the jurisdiction, sets out how criminal and civil proceedings work in practice and provides useful information on how people become lawyers, what lawyers actually do once they become qualified and how the legal system is funded. The appendices set out some sample sources of law so that readers can familiarise themselves with what is involved in handling legal documents. The language throughout is accessible and there are Tables of Cases and Legislation, as well as a comprehensive index.


Brexit and the Northern Ireland Constitution

Brexit and the Northern Ireland Constitution

Author: Lisa Claire Whitten

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2023-12-12

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0198882041

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Brexit and the Northern Ireland Constitution considers the intersection of two processes: the complex and constitutional process of the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union - Brexit - and the steady yet fragile development of the Northern Ireland constitution deriving, primarily, from the Belfast 'Good Friday' Agreement of 1998. Interdisciplinary in approach, the analysis draws on legal and political theory to develop a novel framework for assessing the progressive impact of Brexit on the Northern Ireland constitution based on systematic definitions of both. This approach elucidates dynamics and implications not yet considered in the otherwise extensive debates about Brexit and its impacts on Northern Ireland. Based on detailed analysis of the Brexit process it is argued that its impact on the constitution of Northern Ireland has been profound. Fundamentally, Brexit changed the political and legal environment in which the Northern Ireland constitution had existed for over twenty years. Embracing 'constructive ambiguity' the 1998 Agreement recognises and accommodates the concerns of both unionists and nationalists in Northern Ireland; it did not therefore solve the constitutional conflict but rather allowed it to be managed differently through an innovative system of multileveled governance: within Northern Ireland (power-sharing devolution), on the island of Ireland (North-South cooperation), and between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland (East-West cooperation) all underpinned by a multifaceted principle of constitutional, popular, and cross-community consent. By forcing a paradigmatic shift in the way that the systems of government established by the 1998 Agreement operate, Brexit disrupted the 'constructively ambiguous' compromise that it represents. Completed two years after the legal implementation of UK withdrawal from the EU, Whitten concludes by considering the potential longer-term constitutional repercussions of Brexit both within and beyond Northern Ireland's (recently notorious) borders.


The Changing Constitution

The Changing Constitution

Author: Jeffrey Jowell

Publisher:

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 481

ISBN-13: 0198806361

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The Changing Constitution provides concise, scholarly and thought-provoking essays on the key issues surrounding the UK's constitutional development, and the current debates around reform.


Judicial Review and the Constitution

Judicial Review and the Constitution

Author: Christopher Forsyth

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2000-05-01

Total Pages: 480

ISBN-13: 1847311873

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This collection of essays presents opposing sides of the debate over the foundations of judicial review. In this work,however, the discussion of whether the 'ultra vires' doctrine is best characterised as a central principle of administrative law or as a harmless, justificatory fiction is located in the highly topical and political context of constitutional change. The thorough jurisprudential analysis of the relative merits of models of 'legislative intention' and 'judicial creativity' provides a sound base for consideration of the constitutional problems arising out of legislative devolution and the Human Rights Act 1998. As the historical orthodoxy is challenged by growing institutional independence, leading figures in the field offer competing perspectives on the future of judicial review. “Confucius was wrong to say that it is a curse to live in interesting times. We are witnessing the development of a constitutional philosophy which recognises fundamental values and gives them effect in the mediation of law to the people”. (Sir John Laws) Contributors Nick Bamforth, Paul Craig, David Dyzenhaus, Mark Elliott, David Feldman, Christopher Forsyth, Brigid Hadfield, Jeffrey Jowell QC, Sir John Laws, Dawn Oliver, Sir Stephen Sedley, Mark Walters. With short responses by: TRS Allan, Stephen Bailey, Robert Carnworth, Martin Loughlin, Michael Taggart, Sir William Wade.


Northern Ireland’s ’68

Northern Ireland’s ’68

Author: Simon Prince

Publisher: Merrion Press

Published: 2018-08-21

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13: 1788550382

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The Troubles may have developed into a sectarian conflict, but the violence was sparked by a small band of leftists who wanted Derry in October 1968 to be a repeat of Paris in May 1968. Like their French comrades, Northern Ireland's 'sixty-eighters' had assumed that street fighting would lead to political struggle. The struggle that followed, however, was between communities rather than classes. In the divided society of Northern Ireland, the interaction of the global and the local that was the hallmark of 1968 had tragic consequences. Drawing on a wealth of new sources and scholarship, Simon Prince's timely new edition offers a fresh and compelling interpretation of the civil rights movement of 1968 and the origins of the Troubles. The authoritative and enthralling narrative weaves together accounts of high politics and grassroots protests, mass movements and individuals, and international trends and historic divisions, to show how events in Northern Ireland and around the world were interlinked during 1968.


A Treatise on Northern Ireland, Volume II

A Treatise on Northern Ireland, Volume II

Author: Brendan O'Leary

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2019-04-04

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 0192566318

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The second volume of the definitive political history of Northern Ireland. This landmark synthesis of political science and historical institutionalism is a detailed study of antagonistic ethnic majoritarianism. Northern Ireland was coercively created through a contested partition in 1920. Subsequently Great Britain compelled Sinn F?in's leaders to rescind the declaration of an Irish Republic, remain within the British Empire, and grant the Belfast Parliament the right to secede. If it did so, a commission would consider modifying the new border. The outcome, however, was the formation of two insecure regimes, North and South, both of which experienced civil war, while the boundary commission was subverted. In the North a control system organized the new majority behind a dominant party that won all elections to the Belfast parliament until its abolition in 1972. The Ulster Unionist Party successfully disorganized Northern nationalists and Catholics. Bolstered by the 'Specials,' a militia created from the Ulster Volunteer Force, this system displayed a pathological version of the Westminster model of democracy, which may reproduce one-party dominance, and enforce national, ethnic, religious, and cultural discrimination. How the Unionist elite improvised this control regime, and why it collapsed under the impact of a civil rights movement in the 1960s, take center-stage in this second volume of A Treatise on Northern Ireland. The North's trajectory is paired and compared with the Irish Free State's incremental decolonization and restoration of a Republic. Irish state-building, however, took place at the expense of the limited prospect of persuading Ulster Protestants that Irish reunification was in their interests, or consistent with their identities. Northern Ireland was placed under British direct rule in 1972 while counter-insurgency practices applied elsewhere in its diminishing empire were deployed from 1969 with disastrous consequences. On January 1 1973, however, the UK and Ireland joined the then European Economic Community. Many hoped that would help end conflict in and over Northern Ireland. Such hopes were premature. Northern Ireland appeared locked in a stalemate of political violence punctuated by failed political initiatives.


Constitutional and Administrative Law

Constitutional and Administrative Law

Author: Roger Masterman

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2022-06-02

Total Pages: 889

ISBN-13: 1009178075

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Using numerous topical examples and a clear structure, this third edition textbook provides an accessible, discursive and scholarly treatment of the key contemporary issues in UK public law. Drawing upon their extensive teaching and research experience, Roger Masterman and Colin Murray offer an engaging account of the key topics which make up a constitutional and administrative, or public, law syllabus. Controversial issues and broader debates are highlighted throughout the text, allowing the reader to develop a strong understanding of both the application of key topics in the field and the socio-political context in which the constitution has developed. This fully revised edition includes detailed analysis of recent significant cases, the constitutional implications of the Covid-19 pandemic and a dedicated chapter on the consequences of Brexit.