This article examines the process of constitutionalisation that is ongoing in English administrative law. It does so by focussing on two key questions which, although hitherto largely overlooked by commentators, are beginning to receive attention in the courts. The first question -the 'sin' of omission -relates to the question of how the courts should respond when an agency has not consciously approached a decision through a rights-based framework. The second question -the 'sin' of commission -asks how courts should respond when an agency explicitly reaches a decision on the basis of rights and proportionality. The answers we give to these questions will help to define the nature of the emerging 'culture of rights'. Staking out a position against 'hardline' proponents of rights-based judicial review, I suggest, first, that agencies should not be placed under a duty to articulate decisions through a rights-based framework and, second, that some provisional weight should be accorded to an agency's own assessment of the rights issues at stake.
This essay on judicial review approaches its subject obliquely. It focuses on a particular site of constitutional abnormality: prerogative power. An analysis of the various iterations, historical and contemporary, between law and prerogative in its specific, rooted setting provides the basis for a more general account of the contemporary nature and role of judicial review, at a time when we appear to be entering a new 'age of prerogative' based on the politics of security and fear.
This paper examines the notion of exceptionalism, currently pervasive within constitutional discourse. The term 'exceptionalist' is used in this context to indicate a measure which deviates from normal constitutional standards and is, by virtue of that deviation, seen as inappropriate or regrettable. The paper avoids a direct focus on the debate about terrorism, concentrating instead on more conceptual matters -and particularly the 'fit' between this discourse and the 'common law constitution'. Part I turns to John Locke and uses his theory of the prerogative as a means of highlighting the difficulty of determining what counts as 'exceptional' in this, our 'age of statutes'. Part II raises concerns about the common law constitutionalists' theory of emergency powers, articulated most skilfully by Dyzenhaus, and argues that this theory rests on a mistaken understanding of the nature of common law. Part III addresses the issue of extra-constitutionality and common law more generally, taking as its focus the 'extra-legal measures model' of emergencies advocated by Gross and Tushnet. On the back of this critical analysis, the paper ends by raising questions about the 'public role' of constitutional scholars: have we been too ready, it asks, to deny the complexity of our discipline in order to make political points?
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