Parliamentary sovereignty in the United Kingdom

Parliamentary sovereignty in the United Kingdom is a concept that has long been debated. Since the subordination of the monarchy under Parliament and the increasingly democratic methods of parliamentary government, there have been the questions of whether Parliament holds a supreme ability to legislate and whether or not it should.

The traditional view put forward by A. V. Dicey is that Parliament had the power to make any law except any law that bound its successors. This has been reconsidered by constitutional theorists including Sir William Wade and Trevor Allan in light of the European Communities Act 1972 and other provisions relating to Europe, and the position of the Human Rights Act 1998 and any attempts to make this or other legislation entrenched. These issues remain contested.

Parliamentary sovereignty is a description of to what extent the Parliament of the United Kingdom does have absolute and unlimited power. It is framed in terms of the extent of authority that Parliament holds, and whether there are any sorts of law that it cannot pass. In other countries, a written constitution often binds the parliament to act in a certain way, but there is no such written constitution in the United Kingdom. In the United Kingdom, Parliament is central to the institutions of state.

The terms "parliamentary sovereignty" and "parliamentary supremacy" are often used interchangeably. The term "sovereignty" implies a similarity to the question of national sovereignty. While writer John Austin and others have looked to combine parliamentary and national sovereignty, this view is not universally held. Whichever term is used, it relates to the existence or non-existence of limits on Parliament's power in its legislative role. Although the House of Commons' dominance within the Houses of Parliament is well attested, "parliamentary sovereignty" refers to their joint power. Almost all legislation is passed with the support of the House of Lords.

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