What is Parliamentary sovereignty, anyway?

As we await David Cameron’s sovereignty plan this week, it might help to explain what we mean by “Parliamentary sovereignty”. When we talk about Parliamentary sovereignty, we don’t mean a general notion of political sovereignty—a nation’s right to be recognised as a state, and its rulers’ power within its borders. All states have sovereignty in […]

Same-sex marriage: the US, Europe and the Obergefell questions

The US Supreme Court’s opinion in Obergefell v Hodges – it may come out today, or next week – will be historic whatever it decides. The main question is whether the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution with its guarantee of the “equal protection of the laws” requires states to allow same-sex marriage. Either it […]

Will Obamacare survive “destructive analysis”?
King v Burwell in the US Supreme Court

It may be on Thursday; it may be next week. But soon, the US Supreme Court will give its opinion in King v Burwell, a case on interpretation of the Affordable Care Act with huge potential consequences for President Obama’s healthcare reform. From an English point of view, the legal argument being made for the […]

US Supreme Court upholds the Affordable Care Act

The big news from America today of course is that the Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of President Obama’s main legislative achievement, the “Affordable Care Act” or as some critics call it “Obamacare”. At its heart is what’s called the “individual mandate”: a legal requirement for individuals to buy health insurance, or pay a […]

Written constitutions: a warning from America

The United States Supreme Court is currently hearing Department of Health and Human Services v Florida, in which President Obama’s Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is appealing the decision of a Federal Court of Appeals that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – Obama’s healthcare reform legislation, and his major achievement in domestic social policy […]

Taking Vince Cable off the BSkyB case

Vince Cable has not resigned over his reported remark that he’d “declared war on Rupert Murdoch” – but the Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt will make any further decision on the proposed News Corporation takeover of BSkyB instead of him. There are a number of legal points to be made about this. First, there’s no constitutional […]

Proposition 8, again

Every summer I seem to write about gay marriage in California. At least, I did in 2008, then in 2009, and now I’m at it again. Because Judge Walker of the US District Court has ruled, in Perry v Schwarzenegger, that Proposition 8 breaches the “due process” and “equal protection” clauses of the US Constitution. […]

Fox v Federal Communications Commission

On the day the High Court here has delivered a blow against the Foxification of our media, in the United States Fox TV (together with the big networks, CBS, ABC and NBC among others) has had a genuine legal victory. The Federal Court of Appeals, 2nd Circuit, has ruled that the policy of the FCC […]

It’s certainly not “time” for a written constitution

I’m grateful to Charon for drawing my attention to Richard Gordon QC’s article in the Times last week arguing that it’s “time” for a written constitution. I’m not as impressed as he was, though. I’m thoroughly and firmly against a written constitution for the UK. The current conventional vogue for one, together with Gordon Brown’s […]

That bungled oath

He’s done it again, then. It was obviously Chief Justice Roberts’s fault; he was the only who put the adverb faithfully at the end of the second clause, rather than at the beginning, as it should be. Perhaps it was some mad fear of a split infinitive, or something. I bet Fowler would have diagnosed […]