Paul F Scott – författare

Entick v Carrington is one of the canons of English public law and in 2015 it is 250 years old. In 1762 the Earl of Halifax, one of His Majesty’s Principal Secretaries of State, despatched Nathan Carrington and three other of the King’s messengers to John Entick’s house in Stepney. They broke into his house, seizing his papers and causing significant damage. Why? Because he was said to have written seditious papers published in the Monitor. Entick sued Carrington and the other messengers for trespass. The defendants argued that the Earl of Halifax had given them legal authority to act as they had. Lord Camden ruled firmly in Entick’s favour, holding that the warrant of a Secretary of State could not render lawful actions such as these which were otherwise unlawful. The case is a canonical statement of the common law’s commitment to the constitutional principle of the rule of law. In this collection, leading public lawyers reflect on the history of the case, the enduring importance of the legal principles for which it stands, and the broader implications of Entick v Carrington 250 years on.Winner of the American Society for Legal History Sutherland Prize 2016.

This book addresses the various ways in which modern approaches to the protection of national security have impacted upon the constitutional order of the United Kingdom. It outlines and assesses the constitutional significance of the three primary elements of the United Kingdom’s response to the possibility of terrorism and other phenomena that threaten the security of the state: the body of counter-terrorism legislation that has grown up in the last decade and a half; the evolving law of investigatory powers; and, to the extent relevant to the domestic constitution, the law and practice governing international military action and co-operation. Following on from this, the author demonstrates that considerations of national security – as a good to be protected and promoted in contemporary Britain – are reflected not merely in the existence of discrete bodies of law by which it is protected at home and abroad, but simultaneously and increasingly leaked into other areas of public law. Elements of the constitution which are not directly and inherently linked to national security nevertheless become (by both accident and design) implicated in the state’s national security endeavours, with significant and at times far-reaching consequences for the constitutional order generally. A renewed and strengthened concern for national security since September 2001 has, it is argued, dragged into its orbit a variety of constitutional phenomena and altered them in its image, giving rise to what we might call a national security constitution.

This book examines the constitutional treatment of national security in the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. These four states share their Commonwealth heritage and are members, alongside the USA, of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance. The book takes a comparative approach to the institutions through which, and tools with which, these four states seek to protect their national security against the threats of both terrorism and hostile state activity and how they have evolved over time. It identifies and examines the various specialised institutions, inside and outside of legislatures, which have grown up to oversee the exercise of public power for national security purposes while maintaining the required secrecy. It argues that the extent of the borrowing and sharing between these jurisdictions in the domain of national security, now and in the past, permits us to talk about a Commonwealth model of national security constitutionalism.

This book examines the constitutional treatment of national security in the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. These four states share their Commonwealth heritage and are members, alongside the USA, of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance. The book takes a comparative approach to the institutions through which, and tools with which, these four states seek to protect their national security against the threats of both terrorism and hostile state activity and how they have evolved over time. It identifies and examines the various specialised institutions, inside and outside of legislatures, which have grown up to oversee the exercise of public power for national security purposes while maintaining the required secrecy. It argues that the extent of the borrowing and sharing between these jurisdictions in the domain of national security, now and in the past, permits us to talk about a Commonwealth model of national security constitutionalism.