Where is the final authority in British Law?

In Bradlaugh’s case, it was determined that one House of Parliament could not determine the legality of the decisions of another House.  In that case the petitioner, who could not take the oath because he was an atheist, wanted to challenge the decision of the Commons not to seat him.  The argument was that both Houses of Parliament are sovereign.

In respect of the House of Lords, the present discussion of Lords Reform plainly assumes that the House of Lords is not sovereign except in respect of its own procedures in the most limited sense.  The office of Lord Chancellor, as the presiding officer, was abolished, in effect, by the Prime Minister.  The House of Commons remains sovereign and would undoubtedly reject any attempt by the Lords, or the Judges, to impose their decisions about Commons procedures.

However, the Commons has voted, in principle, to make the Lords an all-elected House.  Would an all-elected House of Lords itself regain the Sovereignty the Lords, since the Parliament Act of 1911, seem to have lost?  Or have both Houses lost their sovereignty to the European Court of Justice?  Do we now have a Supreme Court to interpret our Constitution?  I hope that constitutional lawyers can tell us.

Comments

[Winchester whisperer]

The Lords should take its case to the European Court of Justice.

[Chris Sherwood]

Parliament has not lost its sovereignty to the ECJ; it can pull the UK out of the EU at any time.

The Constitution would have re-inforced Parliament's influence over the details of EU legislation. However this would not have increased the essential sovereignty of Parliament, which rests fundamentally on its ability to enter into and withdraw from treaties under international law.

[Lord Truth]

Of all the most enraging aspects of this present government the most embarrassing and puerile are the attempts to "modernise Britain" by destroying "unbroken" time honoured traditional structures and "fixing"them with others that are as truly real and relevant as the present cult whereby the more money and glittering success one has the more essential it is to talk(publicly) with a completely phoney Cockney accent-(including full glottal stop)
I have not read the full details of the Lords reform but tampering with this kind of thing is similar to interferring with the food chains of animals-strange things can happen.
Britain has always been a nation characterised by political violence:the confrontational H of C represents this as compared to the (theoretically) civilised debating chambers of European assemblies.
An elected House of Lords would indeed quickly present problems for the Commons-as would a president who replaced the Monarchy .Every kind of faction would be fighting each other.
And who would be elected to the new Lords? Every kind of charlatan and on the make phoney would try to slip in. The present system of choosing individuals who have established themselves as proven contributors to the nations good is perfectly reasonable.Bringing our "democratic"standards up to those of African or South American states is to my mind no great advance
We will soon have a "supreme court",like America (OOh how exciting!!--although I notice that the Americans no longer -or seldom use the term Supreme, but instead have copied the British term High Court (which has of course a different function)
This destruction of tradition reminds me of those TV programmes where elderly couples put up for auction the small treasures they have spent a lifetime collecting.I remember one couple saying with obvious sadness that their grandson wasnt interested in keeping the things (he being a typical braindead teenage moron)
It will I suppose not be long before the supreme courts judges will ,interviewed on Desert Island Discs reveal their pride in their complete collections of Stephen King novels and early Rap records,in fact the present leader of the pack ,the Lord Falconer looks as if even those cultural phenomena are beyond him
I suppose the Chinese will,eventually, sort out this mess...

[Zach Beauvais]

I wonder about the character of an all-elected house of Lords. Would it not, in effect, become a House of Commons II? If the houses were elected in a similar manner to the Commons, with Snow's swing-ometer, and poor voter turn-out, surely we would simply have a larger government made up of the same kind of people who are present following any election. Is this what is needed, I wonder?

I feel that despite a strong British tradition of democracy, there is room for appointment, and the appointment itself creates a character which balances the temporary, copious legislation of the Commons.

[Zach Beauvais]

I wonder about the character of an all-elected house of Lords. Would it not, in effect, become a House of Commons II? If the houses were elected in a similar manner to the Commons, with Snow's swing-ometer, and poor voter turn-out, surely we would simply have a larger government made up of the same kind of people who are present following any election. Is this what is needed, I wonder?

I feel that despite a strong British tradition of democracy, there is room for appointment, and the appointment itself creates a character which balances the temporary, copious legislation of the Commons.