Title: Public Law and Economic Policy: The United Kingdom Experience
Abstract: To the limited extent that public lawyers in the United Kingdom have concerned themselves with the massive increase in the functions of government in relation to the economy which has taken place over the course of the last half century, one of their most common responses has been to measure existing arrangements and practices against the standard of an ideal constitution combining efficiency with justice. In the liberal conception of such a constitution government's need for extensive powers in the attainment of its objectives is recognised and accepted, but is in turn balanced with a sufficiency of legal protection for the legitimate economic interests of private groups and individuals. Measured against this standard existing arrangements are invariably found to be wanting: excessive powers are concentrated in the hands of government, their exercise is subject to an insufficient degree of parliamentary scrutiny and control and the aggrieved individual lacks adequate opportunities of legal redress against the administration. This constitutionalist approach thus treats one of the key functions of law in the governmental sphere as being the realisation and maintenance of certain basic values. These values include not only those applicable to government action generally, such as the protection of individual rights, observance of due process, the avoidance of arbitrariness and the promotion of certainty, predictability and uniformity in decisionmaking; but also values specific to government action in the economic field such as the protection of competitors and the safeguarding of consumers against abuses of economic power. In these terms the problem confronting public lawyers is often defined as one of an insufficiency or lack of law; its corresponding solution is seen as lying in an increase in the role of law in government.
Publication Year: 1982
Publication Date: 1982-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 1
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