Unity, Disunity and Vacuity: Constitutional Adjudication and the Common Law

Masterman, Roger; Wheatle, Se-shauna

doi:10.5040/9781509915217.ch-006

Unity, Disunity and Vacuity: Constitutional Adjudication and the Common Law

Masterman, Roger; Wheatle, Se-shauna

Authors

Professor Roger Masterman r.m.w.masterman@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Dr Seshauna Wheatle seshauna.wheatle@durham.ac.uk
Associate Professor

Contributors

Mark Elliott
Editor

Jason Varuhas
Editor

Shona Wilson Stark
Editor

Abstract

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...

Citation

Masterman, R., & Wheatle, S. (2018). Unity, Disunity and Vacuity: Constitutional Adjudication and the Common Law. In M. Elliott, J. Varuhas, & S. Wilson Stark (Eds.), The unity of public law : doctrinal, theoretical, and comparative perspectives (123-148). Hart Publishing. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781509915217.ch-006

Acceptance Date	Jul 17, 2017
Online Publication Date	Apr 19, 2018
Publication Date	Apr 19, 2018
Deposit Date	Jun 26, 2017
Publicly Available Date	Oct 19, 2019
Publisher	Hart Publishing
Pages	123-148
Book Title	The unity of public law : doctrinal, theoretical, and comparative perspectives.
ISBN	9781509915187
DOI	https://doi.org/10.5040/9781509915217.ch-006

Files

Accepted Book Chapter (412 Kb)
PDF

Copyright Statement
This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Bloomsbury Academic in The Unity of Public Law? Doctrinal, Theoretical and Comparative Perspectiveson 19/04/2018, available online: http://www.bloomsbury.com/9781509915187.