ABSTRACT
Although the constitutional reform programme undertaken by the Blair administration is formally consistent with the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty, it is clear that the human rights and devolution legislation, in particular, significantly alter the political and constitutional environment within which Parliament’s legislative powers are exercised. This paper considers whether it is meaningful, within this new constitutional setting, to adhere to the traditional notion of sovereignty. It is argued that the disparity between a Parliament whose powers are formally unlimited yet increasingly constrained, in political terms, by norms based on fundamental rights and devolved governance may be accommodated, in the short term, by means of constitutional conventions which trace the constitutionally acceptable limits of legislative action by Parliament. However, following examination of the nature of convention and its relationship with law and constitutional principle, it is argued that the possibility arises, in the long term, that conventional limits upon legislative freedom may ultimately evolve into legal limits, thus ensuring that the fundamental values embraced by the legal order are acknowledged not merely in pragmatic or conventional terms, but as a matter of constitutional law.
