The legal constitution: United Kingdom parliament and European court of justice

Membership of the EC has transformed the legal status of the UK parliament. Prior to British accession, Acts of Parliament were the supreme law of the land, unchallengeable in any court. This paper argues that EC membership raised the courts ‐ national as well as European ‐ above parliament and that at the time of accession parliamentarians were almost wholly unaware of this fundamental change. The author links MPs’ ignorance to the highly political, rather than legal, nature of the British constitution and traces the evolution of their constitutional understandings. Identifying a new dynamic interplay between British judiciary and parliament, the study argues that the creeping hegemony of law within constitutional politics merits continuing analysis by legislative scholars.