ABSTRACT

Most traditional or liberal approaches to emergency powers maintain that extraordinary or exceptional provisions are compatible with legality, or at least can be made so. Business as usual models insists that 'ordinary legal rules and norms continue to be followed strictly with no substantive change even in times of emergency and crisis'. In his essay, Roach maintained that the 'ordinary law of emergencies', as illustrated by the US National Emergencies Act, the UK Civil Contingencies Act and the Canadian Emergencies Act, had proven that it could effectively supervise the state and hold it accountable for its use of emergency powers. One of the champions of the claim that emergency powers can, and must, be constrained by law is David Dyzenhaus. In his The Constitution of Law: Legality in a Time of Emergency, he contended that there is an unwritten constitution of law, exemplified in the common law constitution of British Commonwealth countries.