Parliamentary Sovereignty Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Parliamentary Sovereignty - Essay Example The constitutional status and the political role of the judiciary have been substantially altered by the European Communities Act 1972 and the Human Rights Act 1998. When England took up the membership of the European economic committee in 1973, the authority of judiciary improved significantly.As such, the authority to assess and deny parliamentary statutes was bestowed upon the judiciary, under circumstances when the statutes were not in compliance with community law. In particular, the European Communities Act 1972 gave legal effect to the subjection of the UK to existing and future Community law. This indicated acceptance of the direct applicability and supremacy of Community law over domestic law. Consequently, the domestic courts were conferred with important powers and jurisdiction.Although parliamentary sovereignty ensures that the British parliament, can at any point of time rescind the authority of EU law, by taking drastic measures, even to the extent of withdrawing from t he EU, it is now not economically or politically viable to take such an extreme decision and face the repercussions of doing so. The European Communities Act 1972, at Section 2, enjoins that every piece of parliamentary legislation has to be construed and applied in compliance with Community law. Hence, English law has to be interpreted as being subject to the principle of supremacy of Community law.For example, in Van Gend en Loos, it was held that a new legal order had come into existence, due to the Community.