Jurisdiction and Devolution Issues

Abstract

This year the UK Supreme Court has considered three related problems with regard to jurisdiction and devolution: its relationship with the executives of foreign states; its relationship with foreign courts; and its relationship with the courts and executives of the UK's own devolved entities. Whilst the particular problems raised in each case are both practically and doctrinally distinct, each reveals an aspect of the political limits to the UK Supreme Court's jurisdiction. In AES Ust-Kamenogorsk Hydropower Plant LLP v Ust-Kamenogorsk Hydropower Plant JSC1 and Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and another (Appellants) v Yunus Rahmatullah2 the limits imposed upon English courts by the principle of comity and the doctrine of Act of State respectively were illustrated. In three further cases, the Supreme Court gave guidance on the ambit of the UK's devolved bodies' legislative competence and the potential for constitutional review under the relevant devolution legislation. In Local Government Byelaws (Wales) Bill 2012—Reference by the Attorney General for England and Wales3 the UK executive requested the court to exercise its powers of pre-legislative scrutiny for the first time; in Imperial Tobacco Ltd v The Lord Advocate (Scotland)4 the statutory ground of reservedmatters was invoked for the first time; and in Salvesen v Riddell, Lord Advocate intervening (Scotland)5 the court held for the first time that an Act of the Scottish Parliament was ultra vires and therefore `not law'.