Evaluate the view that the UK parliament retains sole sovereignty within the UK political system.
A grade essay I wrote in 2022 when I was in A-Levels - now in uni studying PPE :))
Hope this can help!
Evaluate the view that the UK parliament retains sole sovereignty within the UK political
system.
Parliamentary sovereignty can be described as the UK having ultimate legal authority,
whereby it can amend and repeal any laws made. It is stated that parliamentary sovereignty,
along with the rule of law, make up the ‘Twin Pillars’ that uphold the British political system,
and are said to be vital to the UK constitution. However the idea that parliament retains sole
sovereignty within the UK political system has faced scrutiny when recognising the
constraint placed on sovereignty by renowned intergovernmental organisations and also in
recognising the role of the public, judiciary and other countries to what extent parliament can
intervene and make sole decisions. Therefore it is more convincing to suggest that
parliament does not hold sole sovereignty in the Uk political system, as it faces limitations on
the power it can exert and the extent to which it can act in its own interest to repeal laws and
have absolute legal authority.
On one hand it can be argued that parliament is wholly sovereign as it does hold the ability to
suspend and modify legislature, and is not bound by the predecessors who made it.
Parliamentary sovereignty being exercised in UK politics, specifically in regards to law, can be
seen in the suspension of part of the Human Rights Act in 2005 through derogation as Article
5 of the act - the right to liberty and security - would be incompatible with the Counter
Terrorism Act 2005. Similarly, as parliament has legal sovereignty, court cannot strike down
laws as a body that was established by an Act of Parliament. Laws can only be suspended
and appealed by parliament as established under the 1998 Act, the judiciary has a sole
function of carrying out its constitutional function of interpreting and applying the law
enacted by Parliament, they only have the power given to them by parliament. Therefore
reinforcing the notion that the parliament has utmost sovereignty.
However, this argument faces limitations as although parliament has the legal ability to
abolish legislation, this is not always in their best interest as they can be met by opposition in
the UK from the public and also internationally. This inherently erodes the idea that
parliament has sole sovereignty as they can't truly enact laws they want as although there is
the legal authority they are limited by political sovereignty. Furthermore, the act in 2000 gives
judges the power to review cases in light of the ECHR and to declare Acts of Parliament
incompatible with the Convention. This has worked against parliamentary sovereignty and
not in government interest as in 2004 the Law Lords ruled against the government’s
indefinite detention of terrorist suspects in Belmarsh under the Anti-Terrorism Crime and
Security Act of 2001. But it must be acknowledged that in the Belmarsh Case, Parliament
could have ignored the judgement declaring indefinite detention for foreign nationals,
moreover, even though Parliament chose not to ignore the judgement, the suspected
international terrorists had to remain in prison until new legislation was written, since the
principal of parliamentary sovereignty makes it impossible to strike down primary legislation.
Therefore it is more credible to state that parliament does hold sole sovereignty as although
there may be conflicts, parliament will always have the ultimate deciding factor.
On the other hand it can be recognised that within the UK political system Parliament
subsides some of its power and shares legal authority with other bodies, supranational
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