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Public law question

Hi,

I was wondering if somebody could possibly clarify to me what is meant by the following statement (the bold parts especially), as I am an international student (from a country that couldn't be anymore different from England in terms of everything- immensely socially stratified and very corrupt, and English is my third language) and so have limited conception of UK public law and how things work in general:

The law making powers of Parliament, while theoretically and legally unlimited, are in fact constrained by the electorate to which Parliament is accountable, and by economic,moral and political necessities.

Thanks in advance

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 1

Rascacielos

1. In theory Parliament is not limited in what it can do because it's sovereign (very basically - what Parliament says goes).
2. Constrained by the electorate because obviously the electorate vote for MPs in Parliament. If the government passes/proposes a particularly unpopular law, chances are that government isn't going to be elected again (think Nick Clegg). So in that sense Parliament/the government is 'accountable' to the electorate, although not directly like the PM is accountable to Parliament through the PMQs, but through the elections.
3. Other restrictions on Parliament's law making powers obviously involve economic considerations (Parliament might like to send billions worth of aid to impoverished countries, but that's not economically viable); moral considerations kind of link in with the point about accountability to the electorate. Obviously a Parliament isn't going to want to make a decision that the majority of the electorate would consider immoral. And political necessities involve so many different things - just think about how certain decisions can benefit Parliament/the government politically (again linked with the 2nd point). That part of the quote might also be referring to constitutional conventions which, although not legally binding, are essentially certain political requirements (e.g. that the Prime Minister will account to Parliament every week through Prime Minister's Question Time, or some other medium).

Reply 2

Kenocide

Theoretically: how something works 'in theory' is basically like how something works 'on paper' (if you've heard that expression?) compared to how it works 'in practice'. As an example, the policy of asking to see customers' ID in a bar theoretically prevents or should prevent people who are under age being served alcohol. But in practice it doesn't really work because people either use fake IDs or borrow someone else's.

Constrained by: simply means 'restricted by', e.g. his ability to communicate was constrained by his limited knowledge of the language.

To which Parliament is accountable: this basically means that, because Parliament is made up of representatives who are elected by the public to represent them, those representatives can be held to account by the people who voted them in - which means that if the voters disapprove of what their representatives have done, they can choose not to elect them again. Think of it as the opposite of a dictator, who is not accountable to anyone because he can do what he wants and remain in power.

Economic, moral and political necessities: this part is quite vague and open to your interpretation, which makes it difficult to define. This part of the question is essentially asking you to describe which economic, moral and political factors Parliament might take into account when making law which would in practice stop it from simply making ANY law it wishes.

I hope that was helpful.