4 - Governing with Rights

Summary

This chapter explores the role of the Executive in the collaborative constitutional scheme, examining the modes and mechanisms of Executive engagement with rights under the UK Human Rights Act 1998. Emphasising that the role of the Executive is to initiate and drive forward new policy, this chapter puts the Executive in the driving seat of the collaborative constitution. However, it also uncovers a ’plural Executive’, highlighting the multiplicity of constitutional actors working within the Executive branch. Therefore, the chapter foregrounds the importance of an ’internal separation of powers’ within the Executive branch, highlighting the dialectical tension between differently oriented actors. Following a close analysis of Executive rights vetting under the HRA, the chapter concludes with an argument that we should imagine an Executive constitutionalism. At the very least, this chapter calls on constitutional scholars not to exclude the Executive in their pictures of constitutional government.