| R (HS2 Action Alliance Ltd) v Secretary of State for Transport | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Court | Supreme Court |
| Citation(s) | [2014] UKSC 3 |
| Keywords | |
| Constitution, parliamentary sovereignty | |
R (HS2 Action Alliance Ltd) v Secretary of State for Transport [2014] UKSC 3 is a UK constitutional law case, concerning the conflict of law between a national legal system and European Union law.
The HS2 Action Alliance, Buckinghamshire County Council, Hillingdon London Borough Council, and Heathrow Hub Ltd claimed that the Secretary of State should have done a strategic environmental assessment under Directive 2001/42 before the government's 'Next Steps' Command Paper on HS2. [1] This proposed a hybrid bill procedure in Parliament for constructing the High Speed 2 railway from London to Birmingham (phase 1), and then on to Manchester as well as Sheffield and Leeds (phase 2). The plaintiffs argued the Directive should be interpreted in line with the Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters 1998 (the Aarhus Convention 2001) art 7. They also argued that a hybrid bill procedure did not comply with the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive 2011/92/EU because the party whipped the vote, and limited opportunity to examine the information in Parliament. This was argued to fail the test for proper public participation under EIAD 2011 article 6(4).
The Supreme Court held that the UK has constitutional instruments that the courts would not interpret to be abrogated without close scrutiny. [2]
207. The United Kingdom has no written constitution, but we have a number of constitutional instruments. They include Magna Carta, the Petition of Right 1628, the Bill of Rights and (in Scotland) the Claim of Rights Act 1689, the Act of Settlement 1701 and the Act of Union 1707. The European Communities Act 1972, the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 may now be added to this list. The common law itself also recognises certain principles as fundamental to the rule of law. It is, putting the point at its lowest, certainly arguable (and it is for United Kingdom law and courts to determine) that there may be fundamental principles, whether contained in other constitutional instruments or recognised at common law, of which Parliament when it enacted the European Communities Act 1972 did not either contemplate or authorise the abrogation.
The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom is the final court of appeal in the United Kingdom for all civil cases, and for criminal cases originating in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. As the United Kingdom’s highest appellate court for these matters, it hears cases of the greatest public or constitutional importance affecting the whole population.
In trust law, a constructive trust is an equitable remedy imposed by a court to benefit a party that has been wrongfully deprived of its rights due to either a person obtaining or holding a legal property right which they should not possess due to unjust enrichment or interference, or due to a breach of fiduciary duty, which is intercausative with unjust enrichment and/or property interference. It is a type of implied trust.
Jonathan Philip Chadwick Sumption, Lord Sumption,, KC, is a British author, medieval historian and former senior judge who sat on the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom between 2012 and 2018.
David Edmond Neuberger, Baron Neuberger of Abbotsbury is an English judge. He served as President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom from 2012 to 2017. He was a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary until the House of Lords' judicial functions were transferred to the new Supreme Court in 2009, at which point he became Master of the Rolls, the second most senior judge in England and Wales. Neuberger was appointed to the Supreme Court, as its President, in 2012. He now serves as a Non-Permanent Judge of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal and the Chair of the High-Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom.
Thoburn v Sunderland City Council is a UK constitutional and administrative law case, concerning the interaction of EU law and an Act of Parliament. It is important for its recognition of the supremacy of EU law and the basis for that recognition. Though the earlier Factortame had also referred to Parliament's voluntary acceptance of the supremacy of EU law, Thoburn put less stress on the jurisprudence of the ECJ and more on the domestic acceptance of such supremacy; Lord Justice Laws suggested there was a hierarchy of "constitutional statutes" that Parliament could only expressly repeal, and so were immune from implied repeal.
Sir Stephen John Sedley is a British lawyer. He worked as a judge of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales from 1999 to 2011 and was a visiting professor at the University of Oxford from 2011 to 2015.
The primacy of European Union law is a legal principle establishing precedence of European Union law over conflicting national laws of EU member states.
United Kingdom administrative law is part of UK constitutional law that is designed through judicial review to hold executive power and public bodies accountable under the law. A person can apply to the High Court to challenge a public body's decision if they have a "sufficient interest", within three months of the grounds of the cause of action becoming known. By contrast, claims against public bodies in tort or contract are usually limited by the Limitation Act 1980 to a period of 6 years.
Robert John Reed, Baron Reed of Allermuir, is a Scottish judge who has been President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom since January 2020. He was the principal judge in the Commercial Court in Scotland before being promoted to the Inner House of the Court of Session in 2008. He is an authority on human rights law in Scotland and elsewhere; he served as one of the UK's ad hoc judges at the European Court of Human Rights. He was also a Non-Permanent Judge of the Court of Final Appeal of Hong Kong.
The United Kingdom constitutional law concerns the governance of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. With the oldest continuous political system on Earth, the British constitution is not contained in a single code but principles have emerged over centuries from common law statute, case law, political conventions and social consensus. In 1215, Magna Carta required the King to call "common counsel" or Parliament, hold courts in a fixed place, guarantee fair trials, guarantee free movement of people, free the church from the state, and it enshrined the rights of "common" people to use the land. After the English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution 1688, Parliament won supremacy over the monarch, the church and the courts, and the Bill of Rights 1689 recorded that the "election of members of Parliament ought to be free". The Act of Union 1707 unified England, Wales and Scotland, while Ireland was joined in 1800, but the Republic of Ireland formally separated between 1916 and 1921 through bitter armed conflict. By the Representation of the People Act 1928, almost every adult man and woman was finally entitled to vote for Parliament. The UK was a founding member of the International Labour Organization (ILO), the United Nations, the Commonwealth, the Council of Europe, and the World Trade Organization (WTO).
An Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom is primary legislation passed by the UK Parliament in Westminster, London.
The constitution of the United Kingdom or British constitution comprises the written and unwritten arrangements that establish the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as a political body. Unlike in most countries, no official attempt has been made to codify such arrangements into a single document, thus it is known as an uncodified constitution. This enables the constitution to be easily changed as no provisions are formally entrenched.
Compulsory purchase is the power to purchase rights over an estate in English land law, or to buy that estate outright, without the current owner's consent. In England and Wales, Parliament has granted several different kinds of compulsory purchase power, which are exercisable by various bodies in various situations. Such powers are meant to be used "for the public benefit". This expression is interpreted broadly.
Theodore Huckle is a Welsh barrister. He served as the first and to date only independent professional Counsel General for Wales, the statutory Law Officer to the Welsh Government, during the governmental term of the 4th Assembly/Senedd. Upon nomination by the First Minister, his appointment was approved by the Senedd and formally made by the Queen on 21 July 2011, although he had been acting Counsel General from his birthday on 27 May 2011.
R v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions was a 2015 judgment by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom where by a majority of 3-2 the court ruled that the benefit cap, a British government policy limiting welfare benefits, was legal. The benefit cap limits British social security benefits to £500 per week regardless of the number of children in a family and the level of local rents. The case was brought on behalf of two single mothers. One known as SG was the mother of six children the youngest of whom is four years old. The second mother known as NS had three children and had a marriage with a long history of sexual abuse and domestic violence. The Supreme Court did however rule that the cap breaches United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
R (Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union is a United Kingdom constitutional law case decided by the United Kingdom Supreme Court on 24 January 2017, which ruled that the British Government might not initiate withdrawal from the European Union by formal notification to the Council of the European Union as prescribed by Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union without an Act of Parliament giving the government Parliament's permission to do so. Two days later, the government responded by bringing to Parliament the European Union Act 2017 for first reading in the House of Commons on 26 January 2017. The case is informally referred to as "the Miller case" or "Miller I".
The Environmental Impact Assessment Directive 2011 is an EU directive relevant for European environmental law.
The UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Scotland) Bill 2018, colloquially known as Continuity Bill within the Scottish Parliament or the EU Continuity Bill within Scotland, provided for all matters devolved under the Scotland Act 1998 and subsequent legislation that are currently under the control of the European Union, to be repatriated to the Scottish Parliament upon 'exit day'. It was referred to as the Scottish EU Continuity Bill outwith Scotland, was a passed legislative bill by the Scottish Parliament with a stated view to prepare devolved elements of Scots law in view of the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union.
In public law, abrogation is the proposing away of a right, power or value, by a public body in delegating power or failing to carry out a responsibility or duty. The abrogation of such a responsibility or duty, unless required by primary legislation would amount to an unconstitutional delegation of power to a foreign government or other sovereign power.
Judges unanimously dismissed claims that the government was failing to comply with the strategic environmental assessment directive, and that the hybrid bill before parliament would breach the environmental impact assessment.