COKE-PARLIAMENTARY SOVEREIGNTY OR THE SUPREMACY OF THE LAW?

Authors

R. A. MacKay, Princeton, N. J.

Abstract

Few legal authorities have received such conflicting interpretations as Sir Edward Coke. American jurists have turned to him as the legal father of judicial review, English jurists have found in him the authority for Parliamentary Supremacy, The cause of these conflicting interpretations is partly Coke's obscure style. Coke was an encyclopedist rather than a philosopher of the law: his ideas must be dug out and fused together from an heterogeneous mass of apparently unrelated statements. Even his Reports are legal and literary puzzles, a mixture of advocates' pleas, judicial decisions, and probably Sir Edward Coke's personal opinions as well. Hence it is readily understood why differences in the interpretation of Coke's general ideas have arisen. Two of these are worthy of note.

Recommended Citation

R. A. MacKay, COKE-PARLIAMENTARY SOVEREIGNTY OR THE SUPREMACY OF THE LAW?, 22 Mich. L. Rev. 215 (1924).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol22/iss3/4