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GDL Law Notes GDL Constitutional and Administrative Law Notes

Principles Of Constitutional Law Notes

Updated Principles Of Constitutional Law Notes

GDL Constitutional and Administrative Law Notes

GDL Constitutional and Administrative Law

Approximately 509 pages

A collection of the best GDL notes the director of Oxbridge Notes (an Oxford law graduate) could find after combing through dozens of applications from mostly first class students and carefully evaluating each on accuracy, formatting, logical structure, spelling/grammar, conciseness and "wow-factor".
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The following is a more accessible plain text extract of the PDF sample above, taken from our GDL Constitutional and Administrative Law Notes. Due to the challenges of extracting text from PDFs, it will have odd formatting:

Principles of Constitutional Law

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Basic theories of democratic society

  • Rousseau:

    • “Man is born free, but he is everywhere in chains”

    • Physical freedom relinquished for civil freedom – the ‘sovereign’ as the collective with single, general will that aims for common good

    • The sovereign is legislative, the executive needed to administer – these two are in constant friction

    • Political legitimacy comes from social contracts

    • The sovereign should practice direct democracy through general assemblies

  • Locke:

    • Democracy as a contract.

    • No divine right of Kings.

    • The State of Nature was complete liberty – though pre-political it was not pre-moral (natural law – everyone is equal)

    • Men sought civil government for the protection of property. In making the social contract, they have consented to be ruled by the will of the majority. They gain laws, judges & the executive to enforce laws, and can no longer take justice into their own hands.

    • Tyranny is a ruler reverting to the State of Nature & collapses the compact (separated powers) meaning self-defence is permissible again

  • Hobbes: submission to an absolute authority to escape the horror of the State of Nature

Strengthening democratic rule:

  • Mueinik: “bridge away from a culture of authority...to a culture of justification”

  • Jennings: Parliamentary sovereignty is fettered by the political reality that they must serve the public if they wish for re-election

  • Bill of Rights 1686: reorganised the constitutional balance in favour of democratic Parliament and took it away from the “pretended power” of the executive Crown (NB: now largely repealed)

  • Parliament Acts 1911 & 1949: stripped Lords’ right to veto

  • House of Lords Act 1999: removed majority of hereditary Peers

Parliamentary sovereignty

Edinburgh & Dalkeith Railway v Wauchope

Private Act for benefit of railway passed without notice as required by Standing Orders

Held: the court was not able to comment as the enrolled bill rule stipulates that a court must defer to Parliament once an Act has been passed

  • Lord Campbell: “look to the Parliamentary...

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