Constitutional and Administrative Law

I was a bit put off by the sheer size of this book but then all the other 'good' constitutional law books were of similar size so perhaps this is the level of detail that is needed to deal with the subject in depth. I liked this book because it felt like a traditional law text book that told you all that you needed to know without any gimmicks aimed at the feeble minded and lazy. You have to work hard with this book but you'll come out the other end knowing a thing or two about constitutional law which is the aim of the game after all.

Basic Reading (2/2 people found this helpful)

'Constitutional and Administrative Law' by Bradley and Ewing is what I would call basic textbook reading. Use this book to get an understanding of the basic law, and then supplement it with a good dose of essay-reading and other books (see, for example, that essential collection of public law essays 'The Changing Constitution' by Jowell and Oliver and 'Public law' by Adam Tomkins)

Part of the difficulty is that the textbook follows a certain pattern which might differ from the one used by your own professor during lectures. As such you will have to try and find order in the book. While it is often very thorough, there are some topics that are so essential for a student to grasp that I would say the book needs more information on it. For example, the 'written but codified' status of the constitution is a given essay-question on every exam and could thus use a more thorough analysis (cf. Public Law by Adam Tomkins) and the impact of human rights on judicial review receives barely two pages of text while on my exam there was a question along the lines of "discuss the effect of human rights on judicial review".

I was honoured to have professor Ewing as my professor of public law, and found that his lectures on police powers, human rights and the terrorism acts were much more informative (and much more useful from a problem-solving/essay-writing point-of-view) than his textbook.

It is a shame that the humour, vigour and passion for the subject shown by professor Ewing during his lectures did not translate as clearly to his textbook.

Overall I would strongly advise students to read this to get an understanding of the basic questions in public law, and to then go out and visit the library. To a student this might sound a bit off-putting, but public law is very much a political subject and there are thus a variety of opinions on the different topics, it is thus often a joy to read the essays and papers.

Informative but boring (8/8 people found this helpful)

Actually, '3 stars' is not a suitable rate for this book as it can either be '5 stars' or '1 star' --meaning you will either love it or hate it. As a law student, I found it quite amazing when I first read. It's full of information and comments on cases. However, when the end of the term comes and achieving in the exams is my only aim, I discovered that this book was absolutely useless. I mean it's good, for academic research, etc. but not for LLB students. We need comprehensive guide books with essential cases (with full information about the cases) only--not a long boring text book (full of lots of cases and reference but no detail for each case) like this. You can't find your answer unless you've read the whole book. However, if you think your language skill is excellent, then there will be no problem about it!

now the leading authority on the subject (2/4 people found this helpful)

i bought this book in order to study my first year public law course as part of my llb. it is an exceptionally thorough book that gives you a very secure grounding in the subject. since public and administrative law by rodney brazier is out of print, this is the best option left.

i was privileged enough to be taught by rodney brazier, and along with this book i managed to secure a first in the subject.

Boring (5/9 people found this helpful)

I found this book far too boring to use effectively. I found I did everything to avoid working from this text. It does help to simplify some bits but overall I did not find it a good buy.

Constitutional and Administrative Law

A. Bradley, K. Ewing

Reader Reviews:

It's a bit weighty but I like it (0/0 people found this helpful)

Basic Reading (2/2 people found this helpful)

Informative but boring (8/8 people found this helpful)

now the leading authority on the subject (2/4 people found this helpful)

Boring (5/9 people found this helpful)

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