PUBLIC LAW 1 COURSEWORK 2008-2009 “Parliament… can create and repeal any law. There is no law which sets the framework for Parliamentary conduct. There is no fundamental law because, as James Madison put it, Parliament’s power is both ‘transcendent and uncontrollable’; transcendent because what Parliament properly enacts cannot be challenged before any court or other body; uncontrollable, or perhaps it is more accurate to say legally uncontrollable, for the same reason.” (Sir Anthony Clarke MR (2008)) “We do not in the United Kingdom have an uncontrolled constitution… In the European context the second Factortame decision made that clear: [1991] 1 AC 603… Moreover, the European Convention on Human Rights as incorporated into our law by the Human Rights Act, 1998, created a new legal order… The classic account given by Dicey of the doctrine of the supremacy of Parliament, pure and absolute as it was, can now be seen to be out of place in the modern United Kingdom.” (Lord Steyn (2005))