In The Sovereignty of Law Trevor Allan presents an accessible introduction to his influential common law constitutional theory - an account of the unwritten constitution as a complex articulation of legal and moral principles. The British constitution is conceived as a coherent set of fundamental principles of the rule of law, legislative supremacy, and separation of powers. These principles combine to provide an overarching unity of legality, legitimacy, and democracy, reconciling political authority with individual freedom. Drawing on the work of Lon Fuller and Ronald Dworkin, Allan emphasizes the normative character of legal interpretation - understanding the implications of statute and precedent by reference to moral ideals of legality and liberty. Allan denies that constitutional law can be reduced to empirical facts about legislative or judicial conduct or opinion. There is no 'rule of recognition' from the lawyer's interpretative viewpoint - only a moral theory of the nature and limits of political authority, which lawyers must construct in order to make sense of legal and constitutional practice. A genuine republicanism, protecting individual independence, requires the safeguards afforded by judicial review, which must ensure that governmental action is consistent with the rule of law; and the rule of law encompasses not merely the formal equality of all before the law, as enacted or declared, but a more fundamental idea of equal citizenship. Allan's interpretative approach is applied to a wide range of contemporary issues of public law; his response to critics and commentators seeks to deepen the argument by exploring the theoretical grounds of these current debates and controversies.

In The Sovereignty of Law, Trevor Allan presents an accessible introduction to his influential common law constitutional theory - an account of the unwritten constitution as a complex articulation of legal and moral principles. The British constitution is conceived as a coherent set of fundamental principles of the rule of law, legislative supremacy, and separation of powers. These principles combine to provide an overarching unity of legality, legitimacy, and democracy, reconciling political authority with individual freedom. Drawing on the work of Lon Fuller and Ronald Dworkin, Allan emphasizes the normative character of legal interpretation - understanding the implications of statute and precedent by reference to moral ideals of legality and liberty. Allan denies that constitutional law can be reduced to empirical facts about legislative or judicial conduct or opinion. There is no 'rule of recognition' from the lawyer's interpretative viewpoint - only a moral theory of the nature and limits of political authority, which lawyers must construct in order to make sense of legal and constitutional practice. A genuine republicanism, protecting individual independence, requires the safeguards afforded by judicial review, which must ensure that governmental action is consistent with the rule of law; and the rule of law encompasses not merely the formal equality of all before the law, as enacted or declared, but a more fundamental idea of equal citizenship. Allan's interpretative approach is applied to a wide range of contemporary issues of public law; his response to critics and commentators seeks to deepen the argument by exploring the theoretical grounds of these current debates and controversies.

This book offers a systematic interpretation of the ideal of the rule of law, arguing that the principles it identifies provide the foundations of a liberal democratic legal order. It explains the essential connections between a range of matters fundamental to the relationship between citizen and state, including freedoms of speech and conscience, civil disobedience, procedural fairness, administrative justice, the right of silence, and equal protection or equality before the law. The principles of public law are interpreted in the light of liberal legal and political philosophy.

The book makes a fresh appraisal of the main principles of constitutional law, seeking to stimulate renewed debate about the fundamentals of British constitutionalism. Rejecting a purely fromal concept of the rule of law, Allan argues that public law should more fully and openly reflect the principles of liberty and justice which constitute the underlying point and substance of the rule of law. The connection between law and justice is ultimately secured by the primary role of the individual conscience in making judgements about what the law requires. And just as no court is ever an infallible arbiter of legal obligation - the individual may sometimes have to stand by his own conscientious reading of the law - Parliament cannot be accorded unqualified authority to change the law. The sovreignty of Parliament is necessarily limited by residual principles of leberal constitutionalism; any other view would contradict the rule of law. Standard comparisons between written and unwritten constitutions, and traditional accounts of the separarion of powers, ovscure more than they reveal. The interpretation and application of statutes must always be a matter of judicial deliberation and judgement, just as the application of government policies and administrative orders is ultimately subject to the requirements of justice in particular cases.

In Constitutional Justice, the concept of the rule of law is explained and defended as an ideal of constitutionalism, and the general principles of public law are set in the broader perspective of legal and political philosophy. Although primarily an essay in constitutional theory, its practical implications are fully explained by reference to case-law examples. Drawing on the experience of a number of common law countries-especially Britain, the United States, and Australia-Allan seeks to identify the common elements of a shared constitutional framework that provides the foundations, in each case, of a liberal democratic legal order. These common foundations include certain constraints on the exercise of state power, challenging the widespread view that the rule of law should be conceived as a purely procedural ideal. The book explains the essential connections between a range of matters critical to the relationship between citizen and state, including freedoms of speech and conscience, civil disobedience, procedural fairness, administrative justice, the right of silence, and equal protection or equality before the law. The limits of parliamentary sovereignty are shown to derive from its status as a common law doctrine, when the common law is interpreted as a deliberative process of moral argument and justification. Legislative supremacy is qualified by a counter-balancing judicial sovereignty, ensuring the protection of fundamental common law rights of procedural fairness and equality.

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