Course Catalogue

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This level 4 honours course enables students to deepen and broaden their understanding of constitutional law and also to develop certain skills in research and writing.

The course is taught by way of weekly 2-hour seminars. There will be 20 such seminars in total.

This course is only available to LLB students.

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Formative/summative essay of up to 1250 words (25%); summative essay of up to 3750 words (75%).

The aims of the course are:

· to enable students to develop a deep understanding of a variety of key concepts in constitutional law and the major debates surrounding them;

· to introduce students to some of the leading scholarly literature on constitutional law and to encourage reflection on academic debate in constitutional law;

· to enable students to engage in critical debate concerning the relationship between law and government in the UK and, where appropriate, to make some comparative analysis;

· to enable students to apply their general understanding to particular areas of public law; and

· to enable students to develop oral and written communication skills through participating in seminar discussion and submitting essay and dissertation work.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

· outline the key concepts of, and the main approaches to the study of, constitutional law, both in general terms and with respect to the constitution of the United Kingdom;

· evaluate the changing roles of the principal actors within UK and other constitutional practice;

· critically assess the relationship between constitutional law and politics; and

· summarise some of the major issues of constitutional law in the UK and elsewhere, and understand and critically assess the key debates surrounding them.