This thesis, the first in English on this topic, is an examination of central aspects of Joseph de Maistre's constitutional thought: namely the concepts of constituent power, constitutions, sovereignty and forms of government. Research for the thesis has been conducted with the use of archival sources and French texts and it describes and analyses the above concepts in some detail. The thesis also takes into account both historical and modern scholarship written in French and English. It argues that Maistre's constitutional thought is a useful tool with which to investigate some contemporary constitutional problems in liberal constitutional theory, e.g. those of constitutional self - binding, the circularity of the notion of the sovereignty of the people and the nature of sovereignty in the modern state. Maistre's thought provides a view of constitutional matters which opposes certain enlightenment - inspired perspectives that now dominate constitutional discourse and which treat the constitution as a purely normative phenomenon, rather than as a relational concept which cannot be separated entirely from political considerations. The thesis carries out these tasks with reference to other constitutional and public law thinkers in order historically and intellectually to contextualise Maistre's constitutional thought. It seeks to place Maistre within an intellectual tradition stretching from Bodin, Hobbes and Pufendorf, through Rousseau and Montesquieu, to Carl Schmitt and Michael Oakeshott. In doing this, the thesis argues that Maistre is a modern thinker, whose work although cast in the language of reaction, actually belongs to a mainstream constitutional tradition.

This thesis examines the new regime brought in by the Localism Act 2011 for promoting and maintaining standards of conduct of members of English local government. It asks how practitioners can improve their practice in the implementation of new legislation addressing the issue of standards of behaviour of locally elected politicians. The legislation was highly controversial in reversing the approach taken by the previous Labour government of a national oversight regime and addresses the issue of public confidence in local elected representatives by leaving decisions to take action regarding standards to local authorities. This is a form of localism. The thesis adopts the methodology of action research combining two specific elements of insider action research and participative action research. This is achieved through reflective consideration of own practice and working with a regional partnership of public sector professionals charged with the responsibility of administering and applying the legislation to deal with complaints. The participants are at the most senior level of their professions and they contribute through rigorous semi structured interviews supported by public sector performance indicators. This provides robust qualitative and quantitative data which enables an original assessment of the implementation of a controversial piece of legislation. The thesis provides evidence to support the finding that the Localism Act's duty on local authorities to promote and maintain standards of conduct of members is subject to local culture and by the removal of the national oversight of the former Standards Board, Standards for England and the Audit Commission, standards can only be maintained and improved by close regard to the Committee for Standards in Public life guidance and practitioners working together as in the sample partnership applying best practice Critical Success Factors and actions to promote the raising of standards of elected members. This thesis identifies such Critical Success Factors and provides a narrative of the author's improvements in practice as the research proceeds. As action research is used as the method, it is intended that the findings of the research will be fed into further action research cycles.

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Although Britain has developed a reasonably successful model of party democracy, there is little legal recognition of political parties in the constitutional order. My hypothesis is that the legal status of political parties relates to deep-seated political and social theories subsisting in British society. Britain's self-regulating political parties still adhere to the liberal theory of parliamentary democracy. However, there is increasing dissatisfaction with this status quo, which tends to ignore the pluralist reality. Therefore, demands are now being made for the creation of a new theory of democracy and for a range of constitutional reforms which such a theory requires. I propose to adopt a model of double democratisation which implies a refocusing of the liberal distinction between state and society. This model develops an equilibrium between state and society within a constitutional framework which can be called 'constitutionalised democratic autonomy'. I seek to argue that all agencies of power should be regulated within a constitutional framework which allows public scrutiny of the political system as a whole while affording, on the one hand, the greatest measure of freedom to civil society and, on the other, parity of autonomy to the state. The fact that political parties now play a powerful role within the state adds additional urgency to the task of reformulating the democratic agenda. In connecting a new perspective on political parties to the reformulated theory of democracy, the dual relationship of political parties to the state and civil society, i.e., their character both as a social sphere and as a political sphere, will be stressed. Based on these theoretical arguments, this dissertation critically analyses British law relating to political parties and maintains that there is a need for the legal institutionalisation of political parties. It discusses various possibilities for the constitutionalisation of political parties, which are envisaged to encourage in a balanced way inter- and intra-party democracy. This constitutionalisation will require, inter alia, (a) intra-party democracy, (b) electoral reform and (c) the juridification of the financial affairs of political parties. This dissertation concludes that the constitutionalisation of political parties is part and parcel of the modernisation of the British political system in the direction of correcting a divergence between the pluralist reality and the liberal constitutional ideal.

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Fundamental laws in Uganda have demonstrated that the presidency must be granted command of the armed forces, as well as immunity from legal proceedings among other presidential privileges and powers. However, very few attempts have been made to question the origins of presidential authority and to circumscribe it exercise, in order to avoid the possibility of its misuse. As a result, the control of presidential authority in Uganda and in many other countries in Africa remains one of the most challenging issues in constitutional frameworks. This thesis argues that since its boundaries were drawn up by the British in 1894, up until 1995 when the Constitution of the Republic of Uganda 1995 was adopted, Uganda has been ruled under fundamental laws authored under the leadership or the influence of heads of state and governments. Such laws were designed to permanently grant state powers to the heads of state and governments under whose leadership or influence they were created, and it is from those laws that presidential authority as commonly conceived in Uganda has emerged. Therefore, because of the purpose for which those laws were designed, they have not provided sufficient constraints on heads of state and governments. This thesis seeks to answer the principal question as to whether the 1995 Constitution of Uganda which was written under the leadership of President Museveni and his NRM government is another such fundamental law.

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This thesis examines the right to self-representation in international criminal procedure and analyses the current parameters of the right in light of its historical roots. After examining the polarised approaches of domestic common and civil law systems and the laws of the Nuremberg and Tokyo proceedings (which incorporate the right to selfrepresentation although it was not ultimately exercised), the thesis goes on to analyse the decisions of international human rights bodies and the jurisprudence of international criminal tribunals (mainly the ICTY). The thesis shows that international criminal tribunals have chosen to offer a right that was not obligatory under international law and the right has a fragmented basis in (i) domestic law, where there in an underlying lack of consensus on the right to self-representation and (ii) in international law, where there are drafting problems and clear differences in interpretation. The thesis critiques the main decisions of the ICTY in light of these issues and examines the framework developed by the ICTY for the exercise of the right to self-representation and the principles established in relation to the time of exercise, integrity of a request to exercise, fitness to exercise and time and facilities available to a self-representing defendant. Rather than curtailing the right to self-representation when trials are prolonged or disrupted, the ICTY has utilised traditional options such as standby counsel but has also created new roles such as the amicus curiae lawyer, 'issue' counsel and incourt legal associates with rights of audience to improve the quality of the defence conducted by a self-representing defendant. The thesis concludes that although defendants are provided with the right to self-representation, its exercise remains problematic as these options either provide a substitute for the role of assigned counsel or are not fully effective. The thesis concludes that the STL and ICC should respond robustly to any defendants seeking to represent themselves using considerations of competence and complexity to ensure a fair trial and drafters of the constitutionaldocuments of any future tribunals should carefully consider whether to include it.

In the spirit of comparative political theory, this thesis analyzes the ideas that have shaped Western and Islamic constitutional discourse and assesses the extent to which they intersect at key historical and philosophical points. This goal is placed within a larger debate of whether Islam and constitutionalism are mutually exclusive. The thesis begins by positioning itself against Samuel Huntington and Elie Kedourie, who argues that Islam is inherently incompatible with constitutional governance. It then addresses the idea of constitutionalism as described by Western thinkers on three constitutional concepts: the rule of law, reflection of national character, and placing boundaries on government power. These are examined through the lens of a particular canonical text or thinker, Cicero, Montesquieu, and The Federalist Papers, respectively. This is followed by an examination of Muhammad's "The Constitution of Medina." Islamic corollaries to the constitutional ideas discussed earlier are then examined. Al-Farabi's On the Perfect State, ibn Khaldun's asabiyya (group feeling) in the Muqaddimah, and the redefinition of the state in the 19th century Ottoman Tanzimat reforms are discussed. Following this, the thesis looks at a moment in history where these two traditions intersected in 19th century Tunisia in the work of Khayr al-Din al-Tunisi, undertaking a detailed analysis of the introductory section of his book The Surest Path to Knowledge Concerning the Conditions of Countries.The abstract philosophical questions that motivated this inquiry suddenly have unquestioned practical implications. In recognition of this, the conclusion of the thesis summarizes the findings of this work to look at how theorists might address the pressing constitutional concerns of various states and peoples.

According to Article 6 of the Kuwaiti Constitution, ‘The System of Government in Kuwait shall be democratic, under which sovereignty resides in the people, the source of all powers’. However, the domination of the Executive’s powers is a remarkable feature in Kuwait’s political system. Such uncontrolled powers contradict the basic values of constitutionalism. The main objective of this thesis is to promote a soft-transformation toward constitutionalising the Executive’s powers in Kuwait so as to reflect, more faithfully, the desired ethical values of democracy, the rule of law, human rights and the separation of powers. Parliament and the judiciary have been identified as the most competent mechanisms to undertake the control of executive power in Kuwait. Yet, the constitutional structure of the executive power system and its controlling mechanisms lack the necessary features to apply this control effectively. The hypothesis outlined above was explored by three different methodologies; firstly, by analysing the constitutional structure of the Executive’s power system and measuring it against the ethical values of constitutionalism; secondly, supporting this theoretical approach with fieldwork by interviewing experts; and thirdly, by comparing the control of executive power with the UK’s law and experience in order to utilise a ‘transfer policy’ method. The main findings of the research indicate that the Executive has obtained arbitrary powers that weaken its accountability system. Thus, the study suggests policies to be adopted by Kuwait in order to empower parliament and the judiciary to exercise an effective control over the Executive’s powers.