Constitutional and Administrative Law Coursework Essay

Constitutional and Administrative Law Coursework - Essay Example Griffith (1985) is extremely decisive of the comprehended deficiency of rule within Government sections. He commented that indispensable political reformation is crucial to hold back prerogative powers in any Department. Prerogative powers exist even now and it is very difficult to spot those powers precisely. For example in R v Home Secretary2 the court acknowledged the reality of a prerogative power, to preserve peace in the land and which had prior to this not been identified. Much of the constitution is principle and not law. For instance the powers of the Prime minister, as they are not law are uncontrollable by courts. This results in some doubts with regard to whether the courts are constantly eager to make certain that the government maintains its legal powers. According to Elliott & Quinn (1998, 368) "The Home Office is just one department responsible for British laws. The Law Officers' Department and the Lord Chancellor's Department also contribute to law reform. All cases brought up by the police for trial must be now taken up by the Crown Prosecution Service which is maintained by the Director of Public Prosecutions and they are answerable to the Attorney General and Solicitor General". The Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme was a source of challenges and unavoidable especially in cases where huge sums of public money were dispersed to victims of crime. This was carried on via a non-statutory process which was governed by ministerial rules of thumb, without proper judicial purpose, or clear appellate rights (Harlow and Rawlings 1984, 388-398). After the turning point decision of R v Criminal Injuries Compensation Board3 (CICB), which demonstrated that decisions of the CICB were reviewable and set the bases for the present review of the prerogative in common. Wade (1989, pp.59-60) debated that damages of the dupes of crime does not amount to exercise of a correct prerogative at all. The reason is that it is not different in role to the institution of a private trust. This view powerfully prefers Blackstone's stress on the 'singular and eccentrical' quality of true prerogative power to the account presented by Dicey based on its discretional character (Munro 1987, ch. 8). Nevertheless, the outlook that reimbursement is prerogative theme since it is non-statutory, and is also similar to the allocation of crown payment, is too acutely entrenched in the judicial awareness to be deserted now. A V Dicey specifies the Royal prerogative as "The residue of discretionary or arbitrary authority, which at any given time is legally left in the hands of the Crown". 4 William Blackstone on the other hand identifies the prerogative more firmly. He states that prerogative powers are those powers which "the King enjoys alone, in contradistinction to others, and not to those he enjoys in common with any of his subjects".5 Lord Parmoor in the De Keyser's Royal Hotel case of 1920 agreed with Blackstone's opinion of the prerogative powers.6 But Lord Reid in the Burmah Oil case of 1965 did not agree with this idea.7 The range of the Royal prerogative power is disgracefully difficult to decide. It is obvious that the continuation and degree of the power is a subject of common law. This makes the