EBOOK Law of the Constitution

The Law of the Constitution has been the main doctrinal influence upon English constitutional thought since the late-nineteenth century. It acquired and long retained extraordinary legal authority, despite fierce criticism and many changes in law and government. By many, it was treated as a canonical text embodying axiomatic principles, or it was simply understood as indeed the law of the constitution; and even by its critics, it was still granted the status of orthodoxy.  Basic constitutional principles became commonly conceived in Diceyan terms: parliamentary sovereignty was pure and absolute in being without legal limit; and Dicey&'s rule of law precluded recognition of an English administrative law and thus retarded its development for decades. Reaffirmed in each new editionof Dicey&'s canonical text, the constitution itself seemed static. The Oxford Edition of Dicey provides sources with which to reassess the extraordinary authority and lasting influence of Dicey&'s canonical text. This volume consists of Dicey&'s rare first edition in its original lecture form and of the main addenda in later editions. It facilitates a historical understanding of Dicey&'s original text in its context and of later changes when they were made. In introducing the first volume, John Allison reassesses The Law of the Constitution&'sauthority and the kinds of response it has elicited in view of its original educative form and educational context.