Adjudication in the United Kingdom: Constitutional Implications

Abstract

Good ideas are often overtaken by great events. That happened to adjudication. Originally envisaged as a single concept applying across the United Kingdom, it has been overtaken by more significant constitutional change. This paper takes a look at that process. Something of a parallel could perhaps be drawn with the individual states in the United States each introducing a similar form of legislation. The possibility exists, of course, of each area adopting a different approach but the indications are that certain communality is developing in adjudication and it is, perhaps, a measure of the success of the concept of adjudication that it is being voluntarily adopted in other dependency areas such as the Isle of Man.