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The study of constitutional conventions is anchored in three assumptions that have so far remained largely unchallenged: that there is a shared “Commonwealth approach” to constitutional conventions; that Commonwealth courts will recognize and employ conventions but never enforce them; and that conventions are always distinguishable from rules of law. After setting out a new taxonomy of modes of judicial engagement with constitutional conventions, we overturn each of these assumptions. We draw on recent case law from Canada, India, and the United Kingdom to show that there is no shared “Commonwealth approach” to the treatment of constitutional conventions. We show that some Commonwealth courts do, in fact, enforce conventions. Finally, we show that at least some constitutional conventions have crystallized into law. These insights disrupt much of what is foundational in the study of constitutional conventions.

The British constitution is famously unentrenched: constitutional laws are not intrinsically more difficult to override than ordinary laws. However, in the largely overlooked 2012 case of H v Lord Advocate, the Supreme Court said that the Scotland Act 1998 cannot be impliedly repealed due to its "fundamental constitutional" status. Unless judicial thinking changes, courts in the future may treat constitutional statutes, like the Scotland Act, as capable only of express repeal, making such statutes "quasi-entrenched". In this article, we argue that, as a judicial innovation, the quasi-entrenchment of constitutional statutes lacks a sound legal basis. Parliament can make its intention to repeal a constitutional statute clear without making it express, and judges cannot, on their own initiative, ignore Parliament's clear decision to repeal even a constitutional statute.

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