Lecture by Dr Camila Vergara, Tuesday 5th December 2023, 4:30pm School of Law and Social Justice Events Space, University of Liverpool and online An inaugural lecture to mark the launch of the new Liverpool Public Law Unit will be given by Dr Camila Vergara on Tuesday 5th December 2023 on the topic of “Anti-Oligarchic Constitutionalism”. Camila Vergara is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Essex and the author of Systemic Corruption: Constitutional Ideas for an Anti-Oligarchic Republic (Princeton University Press, 2020). Her book explored the way in which modern liberal democracies have b ..read more

When we think of the most important ouster clauses in the law of judicial review, we might think of the relevant parts of the Foreign Compensation Order considered in Anisminic, or section 67(8) the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, crucial to the decision in Privacy International. We might consider section 2 of the Judicial Review and Courts Act, restricting Cart-type reviews. Or we might look to provisions in the recently-passed Illegal Immigration Act and forthcoming Victims and Prisoners Bill, which purport to shield the respective legislation from certain kinds of review under the ..read more

This post argues that the terminology of “reserve powers” and “personal prerogatives” are inaccurate and misleading descriptions of the royal powers of prime ministerial appointment, the dissolution of Parliament, and royal assent. They should be described in our constitutional writing as the “formal” or “ceremonial” powers of the royal Head of State. They are distinguishable as being “direct” prerogatives of the Monarch, separate from other Crown prerogatives that are exercised “indirectly”, in the name of the Crown, by ministers. **** As the parliamentary committee on the Fixed-term Parliame ..read more

Last week the Supreme Court (in R (AAA) v Home Secretary) found the UK government’s policy to send asylum applicants to Rwanda unlawful on the grounds that “removal … to Rwanda would expose them to a real risk of ill-treatment by reason of refoulement” [149]. In response, the Prime Minister announced that the government intends to “take the extraordinary step of introducing emergency legislation” which “will enable Parliament to confirm that… Rwanda is safe”. This post argues that the problems identified in the Supreme Court judgment cannot be rectified by bilateral treaty-making and UK legis ..read more

On 15 November, the Supreme Court issued its much-awaited judgment in the case of AAA and others v the Home Secretary, commonly referred to as the Rwanda asylum policy case. The decision came notably quickly, almost a month after the case was heard, indicating the Court’s responsiveness to the urgency and the wider public interest surrounding the case. Despite the swift turnaround, the judgment was meticulously formulated, reflecting the serious implications of the case.  Background to the dispute and the contested law The Supreme Court appeal dealt with the Secre ..read more

In the summer I wrote on this blog about the Administrative Court’s decision in R (Oceana) v Upper Tribunal [2023] EWHC 791 (Admin). Oceana was the first time the new ‘super ouster clause’ contained in section 11A of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 (‘TCEA 2007’), introduced by section 2 of the Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022, fell for judicial consideration, and it was informative to observe how judges responded to the clause in judicial review. But while Oceana raised an important point of constitutional law, namely, Pa ..read more

Brexit has been and continues to be a complicated process to understand, especially for continental lawyers. Nevertheless, it is interesting to try to study its dynamics and how, if at all, the law implemented within more than four decades of being part of the European Union will continue to affect the British legal system. In particular, in this post we will focus on the status of EU derived case law, since there have been many novelties concerning this topic in the latest reforms. Retained Case Law Under the EU Withdrawal Act 2018, as Amended by the EU Withdrawal Agreement Act 2020 Under th ..read more

*Editors’ note – this post is part of a series on ‘Contemporary Challenges for Constitutional Accountability’. The other posts in the series are available here.* This project started from an experience that will be familiar to just about any law lecturer: persuading first-year students, bewildered in their first week at university, that your subject means something to them ― even if they don’t know that yet. In my case, one argument I came up with to sell my students on constitutional law was that government is a very big deal. I return to the question of just how big a deal it is p ..read more

Clause 19 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill (“the DMCC Bill”) gives the Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”) wide powers to impose conduct requirements on undertakings that the CMA has designated as having strategic market status (“SMS”) in respect of a digital activity (essentially, “big tech”).  The condition for the exercise of the power is that the CMA considers it “appropriate” to do so having regard to broadly drawn statutory objectives – the “fair dealing” objective, the “open choices” objective (essentially, enabling consumers to choose fre ..read more

*Editors’ note – this post is part of a series on ‘Contemporary Challenges for Constitutional Accountability’. The other posts in the series are available here.* Introduction On 19th September, the Government published a revised version of the Better Regulation Framework Manual setting out its new approach to impact assessment for regulatory measures. The system it will replace was aligned with the Government’s formal mechanisms to incentivise a reduction in the burden of regulation on business and civil society, but the repeal of the statutory Business Impact Target (BIT) by s. 18 ..read more