The Putney Debates 2017 addresses the UK's constitutional future in the wake of the vote to leave the European Union. Session IV: Preserving the Liberal Constitution, chaired by Baroness Onora O’Neill, considers the constitutional implications of Brexit and the need for a written Constitution for the UK.

Foundation for Law, Justice and Society

Putney Debates 2017 - Session IV: Preserving the Liberal Constitution

The Putney Debates 2017 addresses the UK's constitutional future in the wake of the vote to leave the European Union. Session III: Parliament, the Executive, the Courts and the Rule of Law, chaired by Joshua Rozenberg, assesses the Article 50 case, the Royal Prerogative, and the role of the law.

Putney Debates 2017 - Session III: Parliament, the Executive, the Courts and the Rule of Law

The Putney Debates 2017 addresses the UK's constitutional future in the wake of the vote to leave the European Union. Session II: Changing and Strengthening the Role of the People, chaired by Professor Paul Craig, examines direct democracy, referendums, and the role of social media in strengthening the voice of the people.

Putney Debates 2017 - Session II: Changing and Strengthening the Role of the People

The Putney Debates 2017 addresses the UK's constitutional future in the wake of the vote to leave the European Union. Session I: Parliament and the People, chaired by Professor Denis Galligan, addresses the relationship between parliamentary sovereignty and popular democracy.

Putney Debates 2017 - Session I: Parliament and the People

Richard Parker, Paul W. Williams Professor of Criminal Justice at Harvard Law School, presents his thoughts on how populism has figured in the study and practice of modern American constitutional law and the effect it has had. Opening and closing his remarks with the rallying cry: 'Power to the People!', Professor Parker recalls his involvement in the 'New Left' in the 1960s, his role as a community organizer, and how his activism led to spells in jail.

Populism in Modern Constitutions

Professor Liam B Murphy, Herbert Peterfreund Professor of Law and Philosophy at New York University School of Law gives the 2013 Annual Lecture in Law and Society. In the wake of the House of Commons Debate on tax fairness and increasing public outrage at tax avoidance by Google and other multinationals, Professor Murphy will assess how misunderstandings of the ethical bases of the central legal institutions of a market economy badly distorts political debate on tax and other issues of social justice. Unlike some other parts of the law, the law of property and contract cannot plausibly be understood as attempts to enforce moral rights and duties that legal subjects have naturally, independently of law. They must be understood as Hume understood them: The legal rules of property and contract are artificial, or conventional, in that their justification lies in their effects on overall social welfare and justice. Once the law of property and contract are established, however, it is hard not to think of them as directly reflecting real rights and duties. The law of the market encourages a kind of everyday libertarianism in social attitudes. This illusion leads us to believe, for example, that pre-tax income and wealth represent moral entitlements that should be used as a baseline in discussions of tax justice. The common criteria of tax fairness - vertical and horizontal equity - demand that those with more pre-tax income pay proportionately more tax, and that those with the same pre-tax income pay the same. But justice is not a matter of applying some equitable-seeming functions to a morally arbitrary initial distribution. The social illusion generated by the law of the market also distorts political discussion of contract. Everyday libertarianism lies behind the idea of freedom of contract. More surprising, it misleads some economic analysts of law, who would be the first to insist on the conventional nature of the law of contract. 

Annual Lecture in Law and Society: Law and Social Illusion

Martin Wolf of the FT, one of the world's leading economists, argues that the status quo for the eurozone is untenable, and that the crisis could trigger Britain's exit from the EU, or even the break-up of the UK itself. Britain has become a semi-detached member of the European Union, both psychologically and politically. But the eurozone crisis is likely to alter that situation further, whatever its outcome. The status quo for the eurozone is untenable: it will either become more integrated or disintegrate. Either way, the European Union will be transformed and so will Britain's place, whether inside or, quite possibly, outside it.

The Place of Britain in a Future Europe

A panel of leading academics, judges, and policymakers debate the growing trend towards the judicialization of politics, in which judges are increasingly implicated in settling policy disputes, especially in the context of constitutional rights. Discussants for the Debate: Former Home Secretary Charles Clarke, Lord Justice Jacob, Professor Richard Bellamy, the Hon. Mr Philip Sales, Professor Tony Wright, and Professor Daniel Kelemen.

The Role of Courts in a Democracy: Debate

Podcasts from the Foundation for Law, Justice and Society, an independent institution affiliated with Wolfson College and the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Oxford.