Public Law: Text, Cases, and Materials offers a fresh approach to the study of constitutional and administrative law by exploring how the law works in practice. The inclusion of extracts from key cases, government reports and academic articles demonstrates the law in action and the incisive commentary that accompanies them explains the significance of each. The expert authors have distilled their knowledge of the institutions and legal principles into concise, focused prose, and they encourage reflection through regular questions and hypothetical examples. This leading text provides students with a thorough and wide-ranging knowledge of public law, together with a full understanding of the theoretical and political debates in this fascinating and dynamic area of law. Digital formats and resources The fifth edition is available for students and institutions to purchase in a variety of formats, and is supported by online resources. - The e-book offers a mobile experience and convenient access along with functionality tools, navigation features and links that offer extra learning support: www.oxfordtextbooks.co.uk/ebooks - The online resources that support the book include multiple-choice questions with answer feedback for students to test their understanding

Germany has long been at the centre of European debates surrounding the modern role of national constitutional law and its relationship with EU law. In 2009 the German constitutional court voted to uphold the constitutionality of the Lisbon Treaty, but its critical, restrictive decision sent shockwaves through the European legal community who saw potential threats to further European integration. What explains Germany's uneasy relationship with the project of European legal integration? How have the concepts of sovereignty, state, people, and democracy come to dominate the Constitutional Court's thinking, despite not being defined in the Constitution itself? Despite its importance to the whole enterprise of the European Union, German constitutional thought has been poorly understood in the wider European literature. This book presents a historical account of German conceptions of constitutional law, providing the understanding necessary to see what is at stake in contemporary debates surrounding the constitution and the European Union. Examining the modern development of German constitutional thought, this volume traces the key public law concepts of state, constitution, sovereignty, and democracy from their modern emergence in the 19th century through to the present day. It analyses the constitutional relationship between Germany and the EU from a sociological and historical perspective, looking at how German constitutional law has conflicted and compromised with EU law, and the difficulties this has raised. Filling a significant gap in comparative constitutional law literature, this book provides an account of the major schools of German constitutional thought and their development. Against this backdrop it offers a fascinating insight into Germany's relationship with the European Union.