Stuart Lakin

Email:
s.j.lakin@reading.ac.uk
Phone:
+44 (0) 118 378 4534
Job title:
Associate Professor

Responsibilities:

Public Law 1 (Module Convenor)
Public Law 2
Jurisprudence (Module Convenor)
LL.B dissertations
Freedom Module (University wide)
LL.M dissertations
Mooting
Director of International Legal Studies programme
Chair of Justice, Rights and Legal Theory research cluster

Areas of interest

Stuart researches in UK constitutional and administrative law, human rights law, constitutional theory and legal theory. He is particularly interested in how debates in legal theory can inform UK constitutional law doctrine. He takes a distinctively Dworkinian approach in his work, arguing that different understandings of the UK constitution necessarily rely on - and must be defended in light of - their underlying abstract moral theories.

Other research interests include: methodology in legal and constitutional theory, the public/private divide, parliamentary sovereignty, parliamentary privilege, prerogative powers, separation of powers and judicial review, legal and political constitutionalism.

Postgraduate supervision

Stuart welcomes Ph.D students in his areas of interest/expertise (as detailed below). He is currently supervising the following students:

Anna Laura Cannilla, researching 'A Democratic Defence of Popular Constitutionalism'.
Abdulhaleem Qasim Mohammed Mohammed, researching 'Monitoring of Legislative Omission by the Constitutional Judiciary (A Comparative Study)'.
Shweta Band, researching religious freedom in India, the UK and under the ECHR.

Background

Stuart graduated from Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge in 1999. He then qualified as a barrister before embarking on postgraduate studies at University College London (UCL). He taught tutorials and seminars in public law and jurisprudence at UCL from 2003-2012. He was appointed to a Teaching Fellowship at the University of Reading in 2006. He was appointed as a lecturer in July 2009.

Academic qualifications

B.A., M.A. (Cantab.), LL.M. (UCL), Ph.D. (UCL), barrister

Selected publications

'The Moral Reading of the British Constitution' Ph.D thesis, UCL, 2009

Blogs

Contributions to the UK Constitution Law Group Blog

The Sovereignty of Law: Freedom, Constitution and Common Law by Professor Trevor Allan: Some Preliminary Thoughts, UK Constitutional Law Association Blog, Feb 4, 2014.
Parliamentary Privilege, Parliamentary Sovereignty, and Constitutional Principle, UK Constitutional Law Association Blog, Feb 11, 2013.
How to Defend a Theory of the British Constitution, UK Constitutional Law Association Blog, June 13, 2012
What Role Should Judges Play in the Constitution Justice Sumption? UK Constitutional Law Association Blog, Feb 19, 2012
I'm Afraid That There's No Escaping it: Public Lawyers Must Also Be Legal and Political Theorists, UK Constitutional Law Association Blog, Sept 13, 2011

Recent Conference/Workshop Papers

Two-day workshop on the 'Methodology in Constitutional Theory', University of Reading (April 2017). Presented paper 'Interpreting the British Constitution' (also co-convenor).
Public Law Conference on 'The Unity of Public Law', University of Cambridge (September 2016). Presented paper 'The Unity of Public Law and Legal Theory'.
International network meeting of lawyers at Blandy&Blandy (September 2016). Presented paper on 'Brexit and Principles of UK Constitutional Law'
One-day workshop on 'Fifty Years of the British Indian Ocean Territory', Queen Mary University, London (November 2015). Presented paper 'The Bancoult Litigation and Legal Theory: Making Moral Sense of Judicial Disagreement'.
Justice, Rights and Legal Theory seminar, University of Reading. Co-panelist in discussion of Professor Alon Harel's book 'Why Law Matters' (March 2015).
Talk to District Judges and delegation of German judges, Reading County Court (April 2015). Gave talk on 'Separation of Powers in the UK'.
International Association of Constitutional Lawyers World Congress, Oslo (June 2014). Presented paper 'The Robustness of Separation of Powers in Transforming Constitutions'.