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Constitutional and Administrative Law (Senior Status)

Overview

Module description

Constitutional and administrative law (also referred to as 'public law') is concerned with the legal rules and processes that structure and regulate a country's government, ie the relations amongst its key institutions, as well as the relationship between these institutions and the individual citizen. In this module we will pay equal attention to the study of the historical and contemporary social and political facts and values which qualify the function of such rules. We will look at legal rules in terms of the effect one rule may have on another as well as how they came about and who actually uses the rules, when, and with what results.

Studying the public law together with the key political facts and values that determine its real function is particularly appropriate in the United Kingdom because its constitution, unlike most other countries', is neither codified in a single, legally binding document nor considered to be supreme law that could override the Parliament's will. Instead, the UK parliament is considered entirely free to legislate on any subject matter. As a result the sources of the un-codified British constitution range from a plethora of statutes (Acts of Parliament) and common law (judge-made rules) to political habits ('conventions') all of which are subject to change.

The module begins with a comparative and historical account of the development of the idea of constitutionalism. The sources and mechanisms of the UK's unwritten constitution are compared with both American and European constitutional traditions. We then move on to critically examine the links between the principle of legal governance to conceptions of democratic control, power, legitimacy and constitutional reform.

Topics covered include the sovereignty of Parliament and the rule of law, Europe and the constitution, Royal prerogative, government and administration, human rights, police powers, official secrets, freedom of speech and the right to protest, judicial review of executive action.

Learning objectives

By the end of this module you will be able to:

  • identify, explain and critically assess, orally and in writing, the main characteristics of the legal system, including general familiarity with its institutions and procedures 
  • demonstrate a cogent and nuanced understanding of the detail of the law and its context
  • interpret, analyse and apply legal rules and principles, orally and in writing, to factual scenarios 
  • distinguish between strong and weak arguments, and evaluate the strength of legal argumentation in decided cases and academic commentary  
  • identify, retrieve and use legal sources and sources of academic commentary selectively and judiciously, including the ability to distinguish between authoritative legal and scholarly sources and unreliable sources 
  • interrogate these materials in terms of their legal meaning, authority and effects in different contexts. This may include empirical, analytical, and/or theoretical methods, and/or the critical apprehension of methods for understanding legal knowledge and techniques 
  • demonstrate knowledge, understanding and critical analysis of a range of legal concepts, values, principles and rules, and an ability to explain the relationships between them
  • identify and demonstrate depth of knowledge of some of the political, economic, commercial, social and cultural factors that inform and underlie legal theory and doctrine 
  • understand and explain complex aspects of the problems and tensions within certain legal theories and doctrines 
  • identify and critically analyse contemporary public and scholarly debates about legal issues 
  • compose cogent argumentative analyses of and arguments about the law in writing that is clear, well-reasoned and persuasive 
  • expound and defend cogent arguments about the law in oral communication that is clear, well-reasoned, confident and persuasive 
  • apply the above abilities independently in spontaneous written and oral communication including in time-constrained contexts 
  • conduct in-depth legal research on specific legal topics that demonstrates legal and scholarly understanding and judgment   
  • write in-depth, well-composed legal analyses which exhibit detailed legal scholarship and clear, well-reasoned and persuasive argumentation 
  • defend, elaborate and interrogate arguments about law in spontaneous oral dialogue in a way that is clear, well-reasoned, confident and persuasive 
  • display appropriate independence, agility and depth of thought in respect of the above abilities and contexts.