Is Parliamentary Sovereignty a Myth - Essay Example

But in those days it resided unsteadily up on the monarch. 17th century witnessed a drastic change as the parliament encroach the authority of the monarch. Religious disparities added the intensity of the dispute and the final result was the civil war. But there were persons who had the opinion that sovereignty is not vested in the parliament alone. For example, Thomas Hobbes opined that sovereignty is not vested in parliament but in the monarch. He advocates that as the monarch offered security to his subjects through his laws they obeyed him obedience.

In his own words, “life is solitary poor nasty brutish and short” so the protection and stability which a strong monarchy provided was a real advantage” (The Individual and the State, n. d.). Later parliament gathered strength in the 18th century and sovereignty shifted from monarch to parliament both in theory and practice. Sovereignty is the dominant feature of a political institution. Regarding Great Britain, parliamentary sovereignty is considered as the most fundamental element of its constitution.

It is the key stone of the law of its constitution. The parliament is so powerful that it can enact or repeal any law and the courts have no authority to judge statutes invalid for violating either moral or legal principles of any kind. As a result of it there are no fundamental constitutional laws that the parliament is unable to alter. When discussing the parliamentary sovereignty, there arises a dispute concerning the law of the country. As a nation has both common law and statute law, the relation between the two has always been a subject of debate.

The legislative law has got a supremacy over the common law sometimes to an extent the statute law can legitimately be governed by the common law principles. However, the statute law is superior to the common law as there is the mainstream notion that the parliament can endorse statutes that supersede any part of the