Law Liberty And Parliament

Sir Edward Coke remains one of the most important figures in the history of the common law. The essays collected in this volume provide a broad context for understanding and appreciating the scope of Coke's achievement: his theory of law, his work as a lawyer and a judge, his role in pioneering judicial review, his leadership of the Commons, and his place in the broader culture of Elizabethan and Jacobean England. Sir Edward Coke claimed for judges the power to strike down statutes, created the modern common law by reshaping medieval precedents, and, in the House of Commons, led the gathering forces that would ultimately establish a constitutional regime of ordered liberty and responsible, representative government. Although much has been written on Coke, there has been no single adequate study or collection of these writings until now. Law, Liberty, and Parliament brings together material that not only is useful for understanding Coke's career and achievement but also illuminates the late Elizabethan and early Stuart periods in which the common law became inextricably identified with constitutional authority. Allen D. Boyer, author of Sir Edward Coke and the Elizabethan Age, is a lawyer in New York City and a frequent contributor to the New York Times Book Review. Dr. Boyer serves on the advisory board of the Yale Center for Parliamentary History.

Throughout English history the rule of law and the preservation of liberty have been inseparable, and both are intrinsic to England's constitution. This accessible and entertaining history traces the growth of the law from its beginnings in Anglo-Saxon times to the present day. It shows how the law evolved from a means of ensuring order and limiting feuds to become a supremely sophisticated dispenser of justice and the primary guardian of civil liberties. This development owed much to the English kings and their judiciary, who, in the twelfth century, forged a unified system of law - predating that of any other European country - from almost wholly Anglo-Saxon elements. Yet by the seventeenth century this royal offspring - Oedipus Lex it could be called - was capable of regicide. Since then the law has had a somewhat fractious relationship with that institution upon which the regal mantle of supreme power descended, Parliament. This book tells the story of the common law not merely by describing major developments but by concentrating on prominent personalities and decisive cases relating to the constitution, criminal jurisprudence, and civil liberties. It investigates the great constitutional conflicts, the rise of advocacy, and curious and important cases relating to slavery, insanity, obscenity, cannibalism, the death penalty, and miscarriages of justice. The book concludes by examining the extension of the law into the prosecution of war criminals and protection of universal human rights and the threats posed by over-reaction to national emergencies and terrorism. Devoid of jargon and replete with good stories, Law, Liberty and the Constitution represents a new approach to the telling of legal history and will be of interest to anyone wishing to know more about the common law - the spinal cord of the English body politic. Harry Potter is a former fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge and a practising barrister specialising in criminal defence. He has authored books on the death penalty and Scottish history and wrote and presented an award-winning series on the history of the common law for the BBC.

A year after the publication of Dicey's LAW OF THE CONSTITUTION, William Gladstone was reading it aloud in the House of Commons, citing it as authority. It remains, to this day, a starting point for the study of the English Constitution and comparative constitutional law. THE LAW OF THE CONSTITUTION elucidates the guiding principles of the modern constitution of England: the legislative sovereignty of Parliament, the rule of law, and the binding force of unwritten conventions. Dicey's goal was "to provide students with a manual which may impress these leading principles on their minds, and thus may enable them to study with benefit in Blackstone's Commentaries and other treatises of the like nature those legal topics which, taken together, make up the constitutional law of England.

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In a fresh appraisal of the fundamental doctrines of constitutional law, Trevor Allan examines the nature of the rule of law and the separation of powers. He refutes the traditional doctrine of unlimited parliamentary sovereignty, challenges the orthodox distinction between law and convention, and considers the character of common law rights and the nature and purpose of judicial review of administrative action.

A starting point for the study of the English Constitution and comparative constitutional law, The Law of the Constitution elucidates the guiding principles of the modern constitution of England: the legislative sovereignty of Parliament, the rule of law, and the binding force of unwritten conventions.