Friday, October 15, 2010

Definition of Conventions from Dicey & Marshall/Moody

Conventions are not easy things to define: Marshall & Moody Define Conventions as: 

rules of constitutional behaviour which are considered to be binding by and upon those who operate the constitution but which are not enforced by the law courts…nor by the presiding officers in the Houses of Parliament.

Also, the Noted Constitutional Law Scholar Albert Venn Dicey – Defines Conventions as:

The rules which make up constitutional law, as the term is used in England, includes two sets of principles or maxims of a totally distinct character. The once set of rules are in the strictest sense ‘laws’ since they are rules which …are enforced by courts; these rules constitute “constitutional law” in the proper sense of the term, and may for the sake of distinction be called collectively “the law of the constitution”

 The other set of rules consists of conventions, understandings, habits or practices which, though they may regulate the…conduct of the several members of the sovereign power…are not in reality laws at all since they are not enforced by the courts. This portion of constitutional law may, for the sake of distinction, be termed “conventions of the constitution” or constitutional morality”

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