LS1031: FOUNDATIONS OF PUBLIC LAW (2025-2026)

Courses dedicated to the doctrinal study of law traditionally focus on the law of a specific jurisdiction. The new LLB programme “LLB in International Law and Comparative Law”, by its very nature, deviates from this pattern. The Programme will introduce students to the comparative method and analyse different jurisdictions' laws and legal institutions. This also applies to the teaching of public law courses. The new LLB programme will offer students a comparative constitutional law course and courses dedicated to the public law of different countries.

These courses will demonstrate the huge variety of constitutions and constitutional rules worldwide. However, the constitutions of different countries also share some common features. There are some concepts and principles that are present in virtually all constitutions. Also, all modern constitutions follow a recognisable organisational pattern with dedicated legislative, executive and judicial institutions. The aim of the present course is to provide students with an overview of the fundamental concepts, principles and institutions shared by constitutional democracies and equip them with a toolkit and vocabulary that can be used to analyse any particular constitution that belongs to the family of constitutional democracies.

The course will cover four broad topics:

(1) the conceptual building blocks of constitutional democracy

1. State and government
2. The public and the private; the domain of public law
3. Authority, legitimacy, and sovereignty (royal sovereignty, state sovereignty, popular sovereignty)
4. Modalities of exercising sovereignty: unitary and federal states
5. The legal framing of governance: the rule of law and constitutionalism
6. The administrative state
7. The democratised state
8. The rivals of constitutional democracy: autocracies and hybrid regimes

(2) the main functions and institutions of the government

1. The diversification of legal institutionalisations and the separation of powers
2. Governance and the modalities of government: presidential, semi-presidential and parliamentary governments
3. The symbolic representation of the state: monarchies and republics
4. The legislative process and legislatures: unicameral and bicameral parliaments
5. The aspects of state administration: regulatory powers and regulatory responsibilities
6. The judicial process, the application of law and judicial law-making, court systems,
7. The constitutional review of legislation (decentralised and centralised review)

(3) the state and its citizens

1. The members of the state and the concept of citizenship
2. Representation and participation, the principles of elections
3. Referendums
4. Protection of fundamental rights
5. The regulation of Civil society

(4) the state in the context of international relations.

1. Globalisation: international economic and social cooperation
2. The external manifestation of sovereignty: public international law
3. International organisations
4. Domestic governance in a globalised world
5. The challenge of legal pluralism

The course lays down the foundation for a compulsory comparative constitutional law course and for honours courses on different aspects of comparative constitutional law, facilitates a better understanding of jurisdiction-specific courses at both the ordinary and the honours level (Eg. UK Constitutional Law, American Constitutional Law) and also serves as an introduction to courses on public international law.

Information on contact teaching time is available from the course guide.

More Information about Week Numbers

There are no assessments for this course.