Home / The English constitution / Parliamentary sovereignty
Key concept
The rule at the centre of the British constitution: Parliament can make or unmake any law, and no court can override it.
Parliamentary sovereignty is the principle that Parliament is the supreme legal authority, able to make or unmake any law, with no court able to override an Act of Parliament. The Victorian lawyer A.V. Dicey gave it its classic statement. Two things follow. No Parliament can bind its successors, and judges apply statutes rather than sitting in judgment on them.
Sovereignty puts the last word with people you can vote out. That is the essence of the political constitution, and the reason Starkey treats it as the load-bearing wall of the whole system. Take it away, and contested questions move to judges instead.
The doctrine has been tested more than once. During EU membership the Factortame case in 1991 let courts disapply an Act that clashed with EU law, a limit removed by Brexit. The Human Rights Act, devolution and the creation of a separate Supreme Court all redistributed power. Some judges have even hinted that sovereignty might have limits. On the Starkey account these are the cracks through which the legal constitution entered.
It means Parliament is the highest law-maker. It can pass or repeal any law, and courts cannot strike down an Act of Parliament.
No. UK courts cannot strike down an Act of Parliament. The most they can do under the Human Rights Act is issue a declaration of incompatibility and leave the final decision to Parliament.
In practice it was constrained: the Factortame case let courts disapply conflicting Acts. After Brexit, that constraint was removed.
