Annual Essay Competition

"What are the constitutional implications of Section 6 of the Retained EU Law Act 2023, and how might its implementation affect the role of the judiciary in post-Brexit Britain?" 

The OUULJ's 2025 Annual Essay Competition is live! We look forward to receiving your submissions! 

The submission deadline is Friday, the 23rd of May 2025, before 23:59PM BST. 

This year's prompt asks writers to contemplate the constitutional implications of Section 6 of the Retained EU Law Act 2023, which establishes a more permissive test for departing from retained EU case law, and ordains that higher courts may depart from domestic precedents involving retained EU law "if it considers it right to do so", having regard to a number of factors. These changes would amount to a notable expansion of the higher courts' power to depart from precedent in cases involving retained EU law. The implementation of Section 6 has been delayed by the current government, and its prospects are uncertain. We hope that submissions will take a stand as to whether it is normatively desirable to bring this provision into force, as a matter of constitutional law. Writers are encouraged to adopt as narrow or broad an approach as they wish to this question, and we look forward to receiving your submissions! 

2025 Essay Competition Information and Guidelines: 

Submissions must be no longer than 2,500 words (excluding footnotes and an abstract).

References must be made as footnotes, using the standard OSCOLA citation style. 

Essays should be submitted as a Word Document, in Times New Roman 12 pt font with 1.5 line spacing. 

For all relevant information, please refer to the 2025 Competition Guidelines. 

Awards: 

The winner of the 2025 Essay Competition will receive the OUULJ Essay Prize, generously sponsored by Francis Taylor Building. This entails publication of the winning submission on the OUULJ Blog (located on the Oxford Law Faculty website), a £200 GBP monetary prize, and the opportunity to be honoured at our Annual Publication Evening, which will be held in the Gulbenkian Lecture Theatre on 03 June 2025.