Uploaded March 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
This event was organised by the UCL Global Centre for Democratic Constitutionalism.
What the Principles of Legality Protect
Speaker: Dr Hayley Hooper (University of Oxford)
Respondents: Prof Tom Hickman (UCL Laws), Dr Ewan Smith (UCL Laws)
Chair: Dr Dora Devlin (UCL Laws)
About the seminar
This is Chapter 5 of a short book entitled the Principle of Legality (Hart: Bloomsbury, forthcoming) that provides an account of the foregoing in the law of England and Wales. It argues that the values protected by the principles of legality make for a surprisingly short list. They are predominantly ‘court centric’ values. Court centric values concern the constitutional position of, access to, functions, and rules of operation of the courts. However, it is difficult (if not impossible) to extract argument about the substance of what legality protects from wider debates about the development of the common law. The courts’ approach to recognising values as ‘constitutional’ or ‘fundamental’ in nature exposes a deeper issue with common law method. There is no single (let alone consistent) method for courts to recognise (let alone create) common law values. Recognition of the substance of ‘fundamental’ values attracting the protection of the principles of legality is characterised by a restrictive focus upon historical and source-based reasoning. As a result, the principles of legality do not fulfil their fullest potential as a constitutional safeguard in the context of legislation.
This seminar was part of the Public Law Seminar Series.
This event was organised by the UCL Global Centre for Democratic Constitutionalism.
What the Principles of Legality Protect
Speaker: Dr Hayley Hooper (University of Oxford)
Respondents: Prof Tom Hickman (UCL Laws), Dr Ewan Smith (UCL Laws)
Chair: Dr Dora Devlin (UCL Laws)
About the seminar
This is Chapter 5 of a short book entitled the Principle of Legality (Hart: Bloomsbury, forthcoming) that provides an account of the foregoing in the law of England and Wales. It argues that the values protected by the principles of legality make for a surprisingly short list. They are predominantly ‘court centric’ values. Court centric values concern the constitutional position of, access to, functions, and rules of operation of the courts. However, it is difficult (if not impossible) to extract argument about the substance of what legality protects from wider debates about the development of the common law. The courts’ approach to recognising values as ‘constitutional’ or ‘fundamental’ in nature exposes a deeper issue with common law method. There is no single (let alone consistent) method for courts to recognise (let alone create) common law values. Recognition of the substance of ‘fundamental’ values attracting the protection of the principles of legality is characterised by a restrictive focus upon historical and source-based reasoning. As a result, the principles of legality do not fulfil their fullest potential as a constitutional safeguard in the context of legislation.
This seminar was part of the Public Law Seminar Series.
