Legislative Supremacy and the Rule of Law: Democracy and Constitutionalism

Abstract

“… for it is impossible that one should be Judge and party, for the Judge is to determine between party and party, or between the Government and the party; and an Act of Parliament can do no wrong, though it may do several things that look pretty odd;”City of London v. Wood, 12 Mod. 669, 687, per Holt C.J.“And forasmuch as the legislature always have justice and truth before their eyes, and their false recitals (if there are any) are made upon false information, from thence it follows that they do not intend any one to be concluded by such recital grounded upon falsehood, for he that says to the contrary affirms that their interest is to oppress men wrongfully, which is indecent to be said of them, and he who insists that some shall be concluded by such falsehood, impugns the intent of the makers of the Act, and in that the Act itself, for the Act is nothing else but the intention of the makers of it.”The Earl of Leicester v. Heydon (1570) 1 Plowden 384, 398.