Limitation of Parliament Sovereignty

Limitation on Sovereignty.
Is the Sovereign absolute? Many thinkers such as Bodin, Hobbes, Rousseau, John
Austin, Dicey, Jellinek, have asserted that sovereignty is absolute unlimited,
original and supreme power of .the state and that, as the state is a unity, there can
only be one supreme authority in it. But this concept of monistic sovereignty is
contested and rejected by others on various grounds. They point out several
limitations on it. We shall consider them one by one.
1. Moral Limitations.
Legally the state is competent to do everything, but in practice it cannot do many
things. What is legally possible may be morally impossible. In Britain, for
instance, parliament is, "from the legal point of view", the sovereign legislative
power in the state. But it cannot make laws and the executive cannot enforce them,
if they violate the moral principles and values upheld by the British people. "If the
legislature decided that all blue-eyed babies should be murdered", said Leslie
Stephen, "the preservation of blue-eyed babies would be illegal, but legislators
must go mad before they could pass such a law and subjects be idiotic before they
could submit to it". However powerful and despotic or supreme sovereign cannot
be successful in flouting the moral or religious sentiments, beliefs and inclinations
of his subjects. Legally he is all-powerful, morally he is not so. "Legally an
autocratic Tsar may shoot down his subjects before the WinterPalace in Petrograd
butmorally it is condemnation that we utter". There is, therefore, a vast
differencebetween what Dean Pound had admirably called "law in books" and "law
in action". Hence a wise sovereign will not make laws which flout moral
sentiments and convictions, violate religious beliefs, or interfere with long-
established customs and traditions of people or their sense of justice and good.
Otherwise he would provoke opposition, bitterness and even revolt or revolution.
On the contrary, laws are easily enforced when they conform to the generally
accepted moral, religious and social ideas and customs of the people.
2. Natural Limitations.
The sovereign cannot do what is naturally impossible. For instance, he cannot
order the sun or the moon to rise, or make a law that the sun shall always rise at 6
o’ clock or from the south. If a sovereign would order so, he will be sent to the
lunatic asylum. Such are the natural limitations on the absolute competence ofthe
sovereign's powers.
3.Human Limitations.
There are several things which a sovereign cannot do; firstly, because he is a
human being, and secondly, because he has to deal with human beings. Gilchrist
has called them "the limits of human endurance", while Dicey has called them the
internal limits, in as much as they rise from the very nature of the body or person
exercising sovereignty. The powers of a sovereign are inevitably limited by the
strength or weakness, capacity or incapacity of his character, mind, body and
personality and also by his education, knowledge, religion,morals and
environment. The same is the case of his subjects or citizens. They are also
conditioned by their environment, education, religion, and moral value system, and
determined by their habits, character, mind, body and personality. So, even if they
are willing to obey a law, they may be physically or mentality incapable to do so.
For instance, the sovereign can make a law that all men, women and children will
work at night and sleep in day-time. But how can he enforce it? Similarly, a ruler
can make a law forbidding the people to hold aparticular opinion because it is 'a
dangerous opinion'. But he is unable to enforce that law, because the people may
continue "to hold it in their heads”, while the sovereign can only punish them when
they will actually write or talk about it. Expediency and common-sense would tell
him not to make such a law. Such are the human limitations on the sovereign
power of a ruler. "They are, as Gilchrist says, "limits of individuality, expediency
and common-sense"
(iv) Constitutional Limitations.

Some writers also point out constitutional limitations on sovereignty. These
limitations are, firstly, the written and rigid constitution, and, secondly, the
provision of fundamental rights in the constitution, and such other provisions in the
written constitution which the legislature or the government is expressly forbidden
to change, such as the parity principle in federal constitutions. The structure of a
state, with a written and rigid constitution, cannot change except by a long and
difficult process of amendment, which is a check on its sovereignty. It is said that
in such a state, there are two kinds of laws, the constitutional law and the ordinary
law. The constitutional law is superior to the ordinary law, which must conform to
it or be declared null and void. So, the legislature which makes ordinary law, and
cannot amend the constitution, is limited in its legislative power. Similarly, its
power is limited by the other provisions of the constitution, such as the
fundamental rights, etc.
These limitations are, however, no limitations on the sovereignty of the state.
Firstly, the provision of a constitution are limitations not on the state but on
government. They require the government and its various organs to remainwithin
these provisions, if their acts and laws are not to be declared unconstitutional. The
state, that is, the people who can amend the constitution, remain as supreme as
before, because they may amend it, if they so like. It is a self-imposed restriction
and, therefore, not a limitation because it can be removed at any time. Moreover
the distinction between the constitutional law and the ordinary law is not
fundamental. The difference is procedural and not substantial.
(v) Limitations of International Law.

International law, conventions, agreements and treaties are regarded as another
limitation on the sovereignty of the state. Bluntschli puts it in these words: “There
is no such thing as absolute independence--even the state as a whole is not all-
mighty, for it is limited externally by the rights of other states and internally by its
own nature and the rights of its individual members". But, likethe constitutional
limitations, the international limitations are not legallimitations. They are merely
self-limitations which the sovereign states observe in their intercourse with on
another. There are no international authority or law court to interpret and enforce
international laws. They are self-imposed and can be repudiated by the state any
time. This is shown by such behavior of the states as when they tear away treaties
as mere scraps of paper or when international conventions and rules are violated,
and, above all, when a war is declared. It proves that the state is free to abide or not
to abide by the international law.International law is rightly regarded as not a law
in the strict sense It is merely a code of international morality which the states
generally find it expedient to observe.

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Limitation on Sovereignty.

(iv) Constitutional Limitations.

(v) Limitations of International Law.

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