Constitutional law

Talk of a reserved ‘Welsh seat’ on the Supreme Court is misplaced. In NLJ this week, Professor Graham Zellick KC explains that the Constitutional Reform Act treats ‘England and Wales’ as one jurisdiction, with no statutory Welsh slot

Professor Graham Zellick KC on the assertion that there is a ‘Welsh seat’ on the UK Supreme Court

Professor Graham Zellick KC revisits Boris Johnson’s 2019 attempted prorogation of Parliament

Boris Johnson’s 2019 attempt to shut down Parliament remains a constitutional cautionary tale. The move, framed as a routine exercise of the royal prerogative, was in truth an extraordinary effort to sideline Parliament at the height of the Brexit crisis. Writing in NLJ this week, Professor Graham Zellick KC dissects how prorogation was wrongly assumed to be beyond judicial scrutiny, only for the Supreme Court to intervene unanimously

The Crown cannot be held vicariously liable for the alleged acts of an Aberdeen judge toward a legal practitioner, the Supreme Court has unanimously held

Sir Brian Leveson’s claim that there is ‘no right to jury trial’ erects a constitutional straw man, argues Professor Graham Zellick KC in NLJ this week. He argues that Leveson dismantles a position almost no-one truly holds, and thereby obscures the deeper issue: the jury’s place within the UK’s constitutional tradition

Professor Graham Zellick KC considers what it means to say there is no right to trial by jury

Writing in NLJ this week, Manvir Kaur Grewal of Corker Binning analyses the collapse of R v Óg Ó hAnnaidh, where a terrorism charge failed because prosecutors lacked statutory consent. The case, she argues, highlights how procedural safeguards—time limits, consent requirements and institutional checks—define lawful state power

The collapse of R v Óg Ó hAnnaidh reveals how procedural safeguards anchor the rule of law & keep prosecutorial power within constitutional bounds, writes Manvir Kaur Grewal

Tim Malloch looks back at the repression of the Chartists & finds echoes in our more recent past