Wednesday, 14 August 2013

Doctrine of Parliamentary Supremacy

As a democratically elected body, parliament is the supreme law making body in the UK. 


Parliament can legislate on any subject matter, meaning there are no limits on what they can make laws about. An example of this is the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 which limited the powers of the House of Lords to block a Bill by voting against it. 
Parliament cannot bind their sucessor, meaning each new Parliament should be free to make or change what laws they wish. There are some laws which cannot be repealed, e.g. Act of Settlement in 1700 changed the line of sucession to the throne. It affected who was entitled to be King or Queen so after 300 years this could not be repealed.
Laws made by Parliament cannot be overruled by others, even where the Act of Parliament  may have been made because of incorrect information. See the case of British Railways Board v Pickin.
One limitation to Parliamentary supremacy is the membership of the European Union. The UK joined the European Union in 1973 by passing the European Communities Act 1972, this membership means that European Union law takes priority over English Law. e,g, Merchant Shipping Act 1988 states that 75% of directors and shareholders in certain businesses had to be British , this contradicted EU law and there was changed as discussed in the Factortame case.

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