(Redirected from Albert Venn Dicey)'Albert Venn Dicey' (
February 4,
1835 –
April 7 1922) was a
British jurist and
constitutional theorist who wrote ''An Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution'' (
1885). The principles it expounds are considered part of the uncodified
British constitution. He had been a graduate of
Balliol College, Oxford and became
Vinerian Professor of English Law at
Oxford and a leading constitutional scholar of his day.
He became a lawyer in
1863 and was appointed to the Vinerian Chair of English Law at Oxford in
1882. In his first major work, the seminal ''An Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution'', Dicey warned that
freedom was under attack by modern incursions against the
Rule of Law. He understood that the freedom
British subjects enjoyed was dependent on the
sovereignty of
Parliament, the impartiality of the courts free from governmental interference and the supremacy of
Common Law.
He later left Oxford and went on to become one of the first Professors of Law at the then new
London School of Economics. There he published in 1896 his "Conflict of Laws."
Dicey was a vigorous opponent of
Irish Home Rule and published and spoke against it extensively from
1886 until shortly before his death, advocating that no concessions be made to Irish nationalism in relation to the government of any part of Ireland as an integral part of the
United Kingdom. He was thus bitterly disillusioned by the agreement in
1921 that
Southern Ireland should become a self-governing dominion (the
Irish Free State), separate from the United Kingdom. As extensively shown in the work of Professor Matt Qvortrup, A.V. Dicey was also one of the first supporters of the use of referendums in the United Kingdom.
Other notable works include: ''The
Privy Council'' (
1887) and ''Lectures on the Relation Between Law & Public Opinion In England'' (
1905). He was the younger brother of
Edward Dicey.
Biographies
★
The Rule of Law: Albert Venn Dicey, Victorian jurist, , Richard A., Cosgrove, Macmillan, 1980,
★
Albert Venn Dicey: The Man and His Times, , Trowbridge H., Ford, Rose, 1985,
External links
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★
An Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution