Gina Miller Quotes

I fought for MPs to have the right to vote on article 50 not because I was against Brexit, but because I was, and remain passionately, an advocate of parliamentary sovereignty.

It is the right of a democratically elected parliament to act in defence of our traditional liberties, and everything should be done to keep it that way.

It was also my idea that the advisory committees of the Academy should replace the legal committees of the German Reichstag, which was gradually fading into the background in the Reich.

The purpose of privilege is not to place parliamentarians above the law, but rather to allow them to carry out their duties independently and effectively, in the national interest.

The principle of Parliamentary sovereignty means neither more nor less than this, namely, that Parliament thus defined has, under the English constitution, the right to make or unmake any law whatever; and, further, that no person or body is recognized by the law of England as having a right to override or set aside the legislation of Parliament.

In the British government, the danger of encroachment on the rights of the people, is understood to be confined to the executive magistrate. The representatives of the people in the legislature, are not only exempt themselves, from distrust, but are considered as sufficient guardians of the rights of their constituents against the danger from the executive. Hence, it is a principle, that the parliament is unlimited in its power, or, in their own language, is omnipotent. Hence, too, all the ramparts for protecting the rights of the people, such as the Magna Carta, their Bill of Rights &c., are not reared against the parliament, but against the royal prerogative.

The function of parliament is to hold the executive to account. We should never overlook the primacy of parliament.

The House of Commons has the undoubted rights to expel members for misconduct. This is an absolute authority which cannot be challenged in any court, as it derives from the twin concept of the High Court of Parliament being the most senior court in the land and of each House's right to regulate its own affairs.

But they have two other Rights; those of sitting when they please, and as long as they please, in which methinks they have the advantage of your Parliament; for they cannot be dissolved by the Breath of a Minister, or sent packing as you were the other day, when it was your earnest desire to have remained longer together.

That's what the Senate is about. It's the last bastion of minority rights, where a minority can be heard, where a minority can stand on its feet, one individual if necessary, and speak until he falls into the dust.

Upon you, fellow-citizens, as the representatives of the States and the people, is wisely devolved the legislative power.

Well it's not a matter for me to say what Llew Smith can or cannot do, he's an elected Member of Parliament.

My personal view is always I'm in favour of anything that gives parliament a greater say. That's after all what we were elected for.

The Bill of Rights was intended to secure freedom of speech - the freedom of speech of members of parliament to speak freely rather than be at threat of... the threat of an over powerful monarch at the time.

There are limits, beyond which, if parliaments go, their acts bind not.

That the Kingdom of Ireland is a distinct kingdom with a parliament of her own, the sole legislature thereof, that there is no body of men competent to make laws to bind the nation but the king, lords, and commons of Ireland, nor any Parliament which hath any authority or power or any sort whatever in this country, save only the Parliament of Ireland, to assure his Majesty that we humbly conceive that in this right the very essence of our liberty exists, a right which we, on the part of the people of Ireland do claim as their birthright, and which we cannot yield but with our lives

We cannot afford to have some future Amendment, destructive of our whole theory of government, manipulated through the requisite number of legislatures, with the people standing helpless to prevent it.

I am free to confess that the exercise of that (Britain’s), authority is not perfectly constitutional in respect to the Colonies. We know that the whole landed interest of Britain is represented in that body (Parliament), while neither the land nor the people of America hold the least participation in the legislative authority of the State. Representation, or a participation in the supreme councils of the State, is the great principle upon which the freedom of the British Government is established and secured.

One-half of the people of this nation to-day are utterly powerless to blot from the statute books an unjust law, or to write there a new and a just one.

Parliament is a potent engine, and its enactments must always do something, but they very seldom do what the originators of these enactments meant.

The EU suffers from … a structural democratic deficit. Of its seven institutions, just one—the European Parliament—is directly elected by the people, and it cannot initiate legislation.

Parliament alone is sovereign.

For me, the most ironic aspect of the Brexit debate has been right-wing Brexiteers speaking loftily about parliamentary sovereignty, when they have never backed MPs having a fuller involvement in how our country is run.

We never said that we don't have faith in Parliament. We have great respect for Parliament.

A U.S. Senator should have the same right as a member of the Knesset...to disagree with any government when its actions may not be in the United States' interest.