Constitutional Law Text, Cases and Materials 2nd Edition

As with its popular predecessor, Constitutional Law: Texts, Cases and Materials. Second Edition, follows the casebook method in exploring the general principles and themes of Irish constitutional law. Short excerpts from cases and academic materials are seamlessly integrated with the authors’ own expert analysis.

In this thoroughly revised and updated second edition, the authors add new features aimed at making this fascinating subject even more accessible for students, practitioners and law teachers alike. It employs a “Comprehension and analysis: test yourself” tool at the beginning of each chapter, as well as recommending “Five key readings” and “Five key cases” in each chapter, thus engaging other great scholarship and material in this rapidly developing field.

Constitutional Law: Texts, Cases and Materials, Second Edition, includes wholly new chapters on the historical background to the Constitution, the political structure of government, the judicial power in the context of the political arms of government, and standards of review. It covers all significant constitutional developments up to April 2019. This second edition is comprised of three thematic parts. The first part looks at the Irish constitutional order in a broader historical, theoretical and comparative context. The second part looks at “Institutions and the separation of powers.” The third part addresses rights in Irish constitutional law.

As well as introducing key principles and themes, this casebook offers a great deal of critical insight and analysis. In doing so, it recognises that constitutional law is not just a body of abstract rules interpreted and applied by the courts. Instead, constitutional law is placed in its historical, intellectual and social context and presented as an ongoing attempt to determine the values that ought to inform governance in Ireland. The important role of the courts in this process is recognised by the central space given to extracts from all the leading constitutional law cases.