What Is Parliament's Legislative Competence
Nor is Parliament’s legislative competence limited in time. It can legislate retroactively, changing the legal consequences of past actions. The War Damage Act 1965 is the Act usually cited as proof, but the War Crimes Act 1991 makes the point just as well.
That Act also shows Parliament’s lawmaking power is unlimited in space: it can legislate for things done anywhere. This has very real-world applications, as shown by legislation against child sexual abuse committed abroad and against torture by officials of any nationality, anywhere in the world. It doesn’t mean authorities in any other country have to do anything. But people who break these laws can be tried here, by our courts.
All of this is in contrast to legislatures whose power is legally constrained, usually by a written constitution. In the United States, for instance, free speech is famously protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution, which says …show more content…
The US Constitution is a higher law, limiting its legislative competence. It follows that American judges review the constitutionality of Congress’s laws, and set them aside if they are in breach—something Dicey’s second principle tells us can’t happen in our own courts.
The big legal debate of modern times is whether Parliamentary sovereignty’s what it used to be, now that we’re in the EU. Laws made by the EU institutions don’t have effect in this country in their own right, but they take legal effect here because of section 2(1) of the European Communities Act 1972. Not only that: the EU law rule that EU law is supreme over national laws is also imported into our legal system by the notoriously obscure section 2(4), part of which
That Act also shows Parliament’s lawmaking power is unlimited in space: it can legislate for things done anywhere. This has very real-world applications, as shown by legislation against child sexual abuse committed abroad and against torture by officials of any nationality, anywhere in the world. It doesn’t mean authorities in any other country have to do anything. But people who break these laws can be tried here, by our courts.
All of this is in contrast to legislatures whose power is legally constrained, usually by a written constitution. In the United States, for instance, free speech is famously protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution, which says …show more content…
The US Constitution is a higher law, limiting its legislative competence. It follows that American judges review the constitutionality of Congress’s laws, and set them aside if they are in breach—something Dicey’s second principle tells us can’t happen in our own courts.
The big legal debate of modern times is whether Parliamentary sovereignty’s what it used to be, now that we’re in the EU. Laws made by the EU institutions don’t have effect in this country in their own right, but they take legal effect here because of section 2(1) of the European Communities Act 1972. Not only that: the EU law rule that EU law is supreme over national laws is also imported into our legal system by the notoriously obscure section 2(4), part of which