Hybrid | The Collaborative Constitution

About the Book

 In this book, Aileen Kavanagh offers a fresh account of how we should protect rights in a democracy. Departing from leading theoretical accounts which present the courts and legislature as rivals for constitutional supremacy, Kavanagh argues that protecting rights is a collaborative enterprise between all three branches of government - the Executive, the legislature, and the courts. On a collaborative vision of constitutionalism, protecting rights is neither the solitary task of a Herculean super-judge, nor the dignified pronouncements of an enlightened legislature. Instead, it is a complex, dynamic, and collaborative endeavour, where each branch has a distinct but complementary role to play, whilst engaging with each other in a spirit of comity and mutual respect. Connecting constitutional theory with the practice of protecting rights in a democracy, this book offers an innovative understanding of the separation of powers, grounded in the values and virtues of constitutional collaboration.

About the Speaker

Professor Aileen Kavanagh is Chair of Constitutional Governance at Trinity College Dublin and Director of TriCON - the Trinity Centre for Constitutional Governance. She has written widely on comparative constitutional law, constitutional theory, and human rights law. Aileen is author of Constitutional Review under the UK Human Rights Act which was published by Cambridge University Press in 2009. Her new book - The Collaborative Constitution - is due out with Cambridge University Press in November 2023.

About the Commentators

Commentators for this seminar include:

Dr Silvia Suteu is Associate Professor at UCL Laws, having joined the Faculty in September 2016. She teaches and researches in the areas of comparative constitutional law, constitutional theory, gender and law, and UK public law. She is a recognised expert on the theory and practice of constitutional change, gender-sensitive constitution-making, and participatory and deliberative constitutionalism. (Chair for this event)

Jeff King has been Professor of Law at UCL, Faculty of Laws, since 2016. He is currently Director of Research at the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law and was between 2019-2021 a Legal Adviser to the House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution. He sits on the Editorial Committee of Public Law, the General Council of the International Society of Public Law (ICON Society), and is a member of the Study of Parliament Group. His book Judging Social Rights (Cambridge University Press, 2012) won the Society of Legal Scholars 2014 Peter Birks Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship, and in 2017 he was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize in Law. He is currently working on the use and abuse of delegated powers, comparative legal responses to Covid-19, and is writing a book on the social dimension of the rule of law. Among his recent publications are The Democratic Case for a Written Constitution, (2019) Current Legal Problems; The Province of Delegated Legislation (2020), The Foundations and Future of Public Law Essays in Honour of Paul Craig Oxford University Press, USA (King J., Fisher, E. & Young A (eds.); and The Cambridge Handbook of Constitutional Theory, forthcoming: 2024 Cambridge University Press.

Colm O’Cinneide is Professor of Constitutional and Human Rights Law at University College London(UCL). A graduate of University College Cork, he has published extensively in the field of comparative constitutional, humanrights and anti-discrimination law. He has also acted as specialist legal adviser to theJoint Committee on Human Rights and the Women & Equalities Committee of theUK Parliament, and advised a range of international organisations including theUN, ILO and the European Commission. He also was from 2006-16 a member of theEuropean Committee on Social Rights of the Council of Europe (serving as Vice-President of the Committee from 2010-4), and since 2008 hasbeen a member of the academic advisory board of Blackstone Chambers in London.

About the Group

The UCL Public Law Group is a community of scholars working in the field of public law, broadly understood. Our aim is to provide a supportive forum for the discussion and development of theoretical and doctrinal questions in constitutional theory, comparative constitutional law, human rights, judicial review, legal and political theory, and more. 

Read more about the group and its work.

Book your place

You can attend this event in-person at UCL Faculty of Laws (Bentham House, 4-8 Endsleigh Gardens, London WC1H 0EG) or alternatively you can join remotely

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