‘For at least four centuries the courts have contested the claims of monarchs to untrammelled authority. ‘The king,’ Chief Justice Coke said in 1611, ‘hath no prerogative but what the law of the land allows him.’ Although the historic settlement of 1688-89, which gave us today’s constitutional monarchy, left in existence a wide swathe of prerogative powers, these have become subject to two governing principles. One is that they cannot be enlarged. The other is that both their constitutional extent and their lawful use are subject to judicial review. If the rule of law is to mean anything, it has to mean this.’
London Review of Books, 10th October 2019
Source: www.lrb.co.uk
