[EM] Brits OK End to Hereditary Rights (FWD)

[Tom Round]

At 06:37 PM 4/1/99 EST, you wrote:
>Brits OK End to Hereditary Rights
>.c The Associated Press 
>LONDON (AP) -- The House of Lords on Wednesday reluctantly passed a bill 
>stripping aristocrats with inherited seats from voting in the upper chamber 
>of Parliament. But that didn't stop some peers from considering a legal 
>challenge to the plan. 
> [snip] Some peers fighting the measure have assembled a legal team to
mount a 
>challenge, said Lord Pearson of the opposition Conservative Party. 

Dear DEMOREP1,

I'm very curious as to how one mounts a legal challenge to an Act of
Parliament (which also doubles in the UK system as a constitutional
amendment) when there is no codified, entrenched Constitution to appeal to.
The only legal instrument that in any sense restrains the UK Parliament is
the European Convention on Human Rights, and that says more about equality
than about hereditary peers inheriting seats in Parliament. Does anyone
have any more information on this?

Yours in curiosity,
Tom Round.



=============================================================
Tom Round
BA (Hons), LL.B (Qld)
[1] Research Officer, Key Centre for Law, Ethics, Justice and Governance
(incorporating the National Institute for Law, Ethics and Public Affairs), and
[2] Associate Lecturer, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice,
Griffith University, Queensland [Australia] 4111
Ph:	[1] 07 3875 6671 or [2] 07 3875 5957
Fax:	[1] 07 3875 6634 or [2] 07 3875 5608
E-mail: 	T.Round at mailbox.gu.edu.au
=============================================================