ABSTRACT
It is often difficult to distinguish clearly between legal and political sovereignty. The distinction is nevertheless one insisted upon by authorities such as Sir Edward Coke, Sir William Blackstone and, in particular, AV Dicey. As with so much of the United Kingdom’s constitutional law, contemporary thinking about sovereignty remains influenced by the legacy of Dicey. Dicey’s interpretation of parliamentary sovereignty will be examined below (pp 172 ff). At this introductory stage, however, it is necessary to note that Dicey drew a strict separation between legal sovereignty and political sovereignty (as did Coke and Blackstone). In Dicey’s view, the people hold political sovereignty whilst legal sovereignty rests with the ‘Queen in Parliament’. In large measure, this clear demarcation between the political and the legal is explained by the unwritten nature of the United Kingdom’s constitution. In the majority of states having a written constitution, the constitution defines the limits of governmental power. In the United Kingdom, by way of contrast, the powers of government – whilst ultimately dependent upon the electoral ‘mandate’ – remain unconstrained by any fundamental written document and subject only to parliament’s approval. All law making power thus derives, not from the power conferring and power delimiting constitutional document, endorsed by the people, but from the sovereignty of the legislature: parliament.
