Parliamentary sovereignty

Parliamentary sovereignty, also called parliamentary supremacy or legislative supremacy, is a concept in the constitutional law of some parliamentary democracies. It holds that the legislative body has absolute sovereignty and is supreme over all other government institutions, including executive or judicial bodies. It also holds that the legislative body may change or repeal any previous legislation and so it is not bound by written law (in some cases, not even a constitution) or by precedent.

In some countries, parliamentary sovereignty may be contrasted with separation of powers, which limits the legislature's scope often to general law-making and makes it subject to external judicial review, where laws passed by the legislature may be declared invalid in certain circumstances. However, in such countries the legislative body still retains the sovereignty by the possibility to alter the constitution, which usually requires greater majority, often 2/3 of votes instead of 1/2.

States that have sovereign legislatures include: the United Kingdom,^[1] New Zealand,^[2] the Netherlands,^[2] Sweden,^[2] Finland,^[2] Jamaica.^[3]

In Israel, issues surrounding the Knesset's supremacy have been contested by the courts over the last 30 years. In 2024, the Israeli Supreme Court, in an 8 to 7 decision, struck down a bill passed in the Knesset which aimed to restrict the courts from exercising judicial review on government actions unreasonable.^[4]