Prerogative versus Parliament: What can be Done?

Brexit has seen the government not merely proroguing Parliament for five weeks, but also threats that the Queen might be advised to withhold Royal Assent from bills passed by Parliament, or even that the Privy Council might suspend Acts of Parliament which the government doesn’t like. It is unprecedented in Britain for the prerogative powers to be deployed in this way. But it is not unprecedented in the Commonwealth. In this seminar Prof Anne Twomey (Sydney University), world expert on the use and abuse of reserve powers of heads of state in Westminster systems, is joined by Prof Alison Young (Cambridge), to discuss whether the prerogative needs to be more tightly regulated, and how that might be done.

Speakers

Prof Anne Twomey (University of Sydney), Professor of Constitutional Law and Director of the Constitutional Reform Unit

Prof Alison Young (University of Cambridge), Sir David Williams Professor of Public Law

Chair

Prof Robert Hazell, Constitution Unit.

Image: Copyright House of Lords 2017 / Photography by Roger Harris. Parliamentary copyright images are reproduced with the permission of Parliament