Human Rights in the United Kingdom
The Assessment Task
This assignment requires you to apply your knowledge and understanding of constitutional conventions to a current constitutional event, ie a situation where a Minister may have breached a constitutional convention. The assignment requires you to identify and apply the relevant convention, as well as the potential consequences for the Minister of any breach.
Your briefing is 1,000 words, which should be written in bullet point format. Communicating your points as clearly and succinctly as possible is key to covering what you need to address within the word allowance.
Choose ONE of the Ministerial situations below and see the Instructions which follow:
Ministerial situations
1.Dominic Cummings, Special Advisor to the Prime Minister: If Dominic Cummings had been a government Minister when he allegedly broke the national Lockdown rules, should he have resigned according to constitutional conventions?
OR
2.Gavin Williamson, Minister for Education: According to constitutional conventions, should Mr. Williamson have resigned because of the Department of Education’s handling of the A level grading and results process in August 2020?
OR
3. Priti Patel, Home Secretary: Due to her treatment of civil servants within her department, should she have resigned according to constitutional conventions?
Instructions
Your briefing is to be addressed to the Minister who seeks advice on whether, in the light of their situation, they have broken a constitutional convention and if so, what the consequence could be.
Your briefing is to:
Identify and briefly explain the factual situation involved (ie what has happened to raise the issue)
Identify and explain the constitutional convention relevant to the situation
Using appropriate authority, identify and explain examples relating to the constitutional convention in question in order to illustrate its operation
Apply these authorities and examples to the facts established in order to advise the Minister on whether or not (s)he has broken the constitutional convention
Identify and explain the consequence(s) for the Minister of a breach of constitutional convention
Your briefing must be properly referenced using OSCOLA.
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this assessment, you will be able to:
a) Explain the key foundational principles, theories and/or rules underpinning UK constitutional law and the contextual factors which shape the operation of the UK’s constitution
d) Sort, order and reference material and ideas drawn from a range of sources into logical lines of argument to propose solutions to questions set
e) Effectively communicate and argue ideas in structured, well written English
f) Identify, select and justify chosen solutions to factual situations (real and hypothetical)
Your grade will depend on the extent to which you meet these learning outcomes in the way relevant for this assessment. Please see the grading rubric on NILE for further details of the criteria against which you will be assessed.
Word Limits
The maximum word limit for this assessment is 1,000 words
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