Module Breakdown – Public Law

Welcome to another module breakdown blog post! So far, I have done 5 posts in this little series on my blog. Essentially, I break down each module and look at it in detail so if you are doing this module, or something very similar, then you know what to expect!

You can find my previous module breakdown posts here:

Year 1 Modules

• Power, Freedom and the State
• Contract Law
• Legal System of England and Wales
• Legal Skills
• Britain: From Blitz to Brexit

Today’s post will be focusing on Public Law, also known as Constitutional and Administrative Law. Let’s get into it.

Content

Public Law like I mentioned before is also known as Constitutional and Administrative Law. It looks at the rules governing relationships between the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. We looked at the features, sources, and principles of the UK Constitution. We also looked at judicial review and the functions and powers of parliament in semester one.

In semester two, we looked at Devolution and how that affects public law, as well as Human Rights and a brief look at the European Union. We also touched upon the Equality Act too.

Lectures

Lectures occurred once a week over a two hour period. In semester one, these lectures occurred online via Blackboard. In semester two, these occurred on campus. Each lecture focused on a specific topic, such as parliamentary sovereignty. However, the topics were so vast that it was common for them to go over more than one lecture.

Lectures were slightly different to what you would normally expect from lectures at university. They were quite interactive and involved a bit of discussion. This is mainly due to our lecture size in terms of personnel being quite small.

Tutorials

Tutorials were a mix of online and on campus, although it was expected you should attend on campus. There were 8 tutorials in total, with 4 for each semester. The tutorials were focused on gaining further insight into each topic, as well as practicing an exam question based on that topic.

Assessments

There were two assessments for Public Law. The first one was a 2000 word essay and we had a choice of two questions. I can’t remember what the other question was but I ended up choosing one about the UK Constitution. I actually really enjoyed writing this and I ended up getting my best ever result. I got an 80 which is absolutely insane.

The exam was at the end of May and focused primarily on everything we looked at in semester two. There were two questions we had to answer, one was an essay question and one was a problem question. We had a choice of two questions for each question type. I felt like the exam went well which is good.

Overall thoughts

Overall, Public Law is by far my favourite module. Every single topic was really enjoyable, even the EU one where we looked at Brexit!

Thank you for reading!

Beth