Jackson v Attorney General

Jackson v Attorney General or Jackson and Others v Attorney General (2005 UKHL 56), (2006 1 AC 262) was a 2005 House of Lords case concerning the legality of the use of the Parliament Acts to pass the Hunting Act to ban fox hunting. It is considered a case of major constitutional signficancecite web|url=http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1748-121X.2006.00038.x|title=Blackwell Synergy] and unusally was heard by a panel of nine judges rather than the usual five. [Loveland, Constitutional Law, Aministrative Law and Human Rights: A Critical Introduction, 4ed, 2006, p216]

Background

The Jackson case challenged the Hunting Act 2004 which made it illegal to hunt wild animals with dogs except in limited circumstances. The Act was particularly directing against fox hunting but also covered other forms of hunting including hare coursing. The pledge to ban fox hunting was made as part of Labour’s 2001 General Election manifesto but faced opposition in the courts from the Countryside Alliance because the Bill was passed using the Parliament Acts after the House of Lords refused to agree to the legislation.

Arguments

Parliament Acts

Jackson argued that the Hunting Act 2004 was not a valid act of Parliament as the Parliament Act 1911 could not be used to lawfully amend itself as it was in the Parliament Act 1949. The House of Lords consent could only be dispensed with according to the terms of the 1911 Act. The appellants in the case also argued that legislation passed under the 1911 Act was delegated legislation which could therefore be challenged in a way which primary legislation may not.

These arguments were rejected by the House of Lords.

Issues

tanding

Issue was not made of whether the Countryside Alliance should have standing to fight such a case. It has been suggested that this is because it was seen as inevitable that the hunting ban would be challenged in the court.

Justiciability

The case also raised the issue of whether the courts could challenge an Act of Parliament. The Enrolled Bill doctrine had established that the courts could not look procedurally at the way in which legislation had been passed.

Parliamentary supremacy

The case is of importance in the area of British constitutional law because of several judgments which consider the relationship between parliamentary supremacy and the rule of law within the British constitution.

In the obiter of the judgment several Law Lords challenged the traditional Diceyan notion of legislative supremacy. Baroness Hale stated that:

'Parliament has also, for the time being at least, limited its own powers by the European Communities Act 1972 and, in a different way, by the Human Rights Act 1998’.

Several other Law Lords suggested that the Act of Union also meant that Parliament was limited in its ability to legislate.

References

External links

* [http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldjudgmt/jd051013/jack-1.htm A law report of the case]
* [http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1748-121X.2006.00038.x Reflections on Jackson v Attorney General:Question sovereignity]