Roger Masterman

The United Kingdom's statutory Bill of Rights : constitutional and comparative perspectives

PART I-THE HUMAN RIGHTS ACT IN CONSTITUTIONAL PERSPECTIVE PART II-DOMESTIC PROTECTIONS WITHIN A EUROPEAN FRAMEWORK PART III-A PERMANENT REVOLUTION IN LEGAL REASONING? PART IV-THE HUMAN RIGHTS ACT ON THE INTERNATIONAL PLANE PART V-AMENDMENT, REPEAL OR A BILL OF RIGHTS FOR THE UK?

Unity, disunity, and vacuity : constitutional adjudication and the common law.

Roger Masterman Se-Shauna Wheatle Our thanks are due to Mark Elliott and William Lucy for their comments on a previous draft. The common law is often seen as a unifying and stabilising factor across and within jurisdictions; in the United Kingdom, for instance, the common law is appealed to as a familiar and certain alternative to the unpredictable and overweening impacts of European human rights law. This is in spite of the common law’s propensity for reinvention, and the internal divisions and tensions within both the substance and methodologies of the common law. These ructions are particularly evident in the constitutional common law and its approach to the resolution of fundamental constitutional conflict. Though primarily regarded as the vehicle for the realisation of the private law of obligations, the last 20 years have seen the English common law assume a distinctly constitutional character. The articulation of fundamental rights, though lacking...

The Conservative project to ‘Break the link between British courts and Strasbourg’ : rhetoric or reality?

The Conservative party has repeatedly pledged to replace the HRA with a British Bill of Rights, with the aim of ‘breaking the link’ between domestic courts and Strasbourg. This article examines the implications of this proposal, the nature of the current relationship with the European Court, and the extent to which the link has already been weakened. It considers the bases of the Conservative proposal, and the options available in breaking that link in a Bill of Rights, taking account of the potential introduction of limitation clauses and the possibility of according Strasbourg judgments against the UK an advisory status only. Finally, taking account of the European Courts recent movement towards ‘enhanced’ subsidiarity, it will examine the consequences for the protection of human rights of reliance on a Bill of Rights intended to be interpreted and applied independently of Strasbourg influence.