UK and US Constitution

9 Key excerpts on "UK and US Constitution"

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  Exploring British Politics

  • Mark Garnett, Peter Dorey, Philip Lynch(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  This benign view of the UK constitution has never won universal acceptance. For many years, critics have claimed that unplanned evolution has left the country with outdated institutions, fit for a living museum rather than a nation which hopes to combine freedom and prosperity in a fast-changing modern world. The 1997 general election gave these critical voices new prominence, and the nature of the constitution has been a key feature of political debates ever since (although characteristic British attitudes persist, and many voters are probably unaware that recent political controversies are about much more than Britain’s relationship with the EU). This chapter includes many themes which are also mentioned elsewhere, but this only underlines the relevance of constitutional questions throughout the subject matter of UK politics.

  The uncodified constitution

  Aristotle believed that a constitution was integral to the way of life of any political society. A more precise definition would characterise it as an authoritative set of laws, rules, and practices which specifies how a state is to be governed and the relationship between the state and the individual. It provides a framework for the political system and establishes the main institutions of government, outlining their powers and the relationship between them. It also determines where ‘sovereignty’ – traditionally defined as the ultimate decision-making power – resides within the state.

  A distinction is frequently drawn between written and unwritten constitutions. In a written constitution, the main rules and principles governing the state are enshrined in constitutional texts with special status. In an unwritten constitution, such rules are found in conventions or tradition. The British constitution is usually classed as unwritten, because the UK has no single constitutional document. This makes the country unusual among liberal democracies; only Israel, New Zealand, and (arguably) Canada are in the same position. By contrast, the written US constitution dates back to 1787 (though it has been subject to various partial revisions). Many of the constitutions of Western Europe were rewritten after World War II; for example, the present French constitution was introduced in 1958.

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  British Government and the Constitution

  Text and Materials

  • Colin Turpin, Adam Tomkins(Authors)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  Part I Constitution, state and beyond 1 The British constitutional order Contents 1 Nature of the British constitution (a) Fundamentals, fluidity and safeguards 2 The constitution, the state and the nation 3 Constitutional law beyond the state 4 Constitutional reform (a) An outline (b) Evaluation 1 Nature of the British constitution Almost every country in the world has a written constitution which is a decla- ration of the country’s supreme law. All other laws and all the institutions of such a state are subordinate to the written constitution, which is intended to be an enduring statement of fundamental principles. The absence of this kind of supreme instrument in the governmental system of the United Kingdom is unusual, leaving many observers to wonder where our constitution is to be found, and indeed whether we have one at all. What, then, do we mean when we speak of the British constitution? Plainly there exists a body of rules that govern the political system, the exercise of public authority, and the relations between the citizen and the state. The fact that the main rules of these kinds are not set out in a single, formal docu- ment does make for some difficulty in describing our constitution, although even in a country with a written constitution we soon discover that not all the arrangements for its government are to be found there: many elements of the constitution will have to be looked for elsewhere than in the primary document labelled ‘the Constitution’. (The formal constitution may even be misleading, for we are warned by a Frenchman, Léon Duguit, that ‘the facts are stronger than constitutions’ and by an American, Roscoe Pound, that the ‘law in books’ is not necessarily the same as the ‘law in action’.) But at all events a written constitution is a place where a start can be made. Lacking this, how do we set about describing the British constitution?

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  Beginning Constitutional Law

  • Nick Howard(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 2

  Does the UK have a constitution?

  LEARNING OBJECTIVES

  After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

  • Define and explain the purpose of a constitution

  • Understand the concepts of the rule of law and the separation of powers

  • Describe a constitution by identifying its key features

  • Compare the UK’s constitution to that of the USA

  • Explain why the UK’s constitution is unique.

  INTRODUCTION

  The question ‘does the UK have a constitution?’ is an important one, because it is the constitution of a State that sets out:

  • the key rights of its citizens;

  • how and by whom the State is to be governed;

  • limits on the power of the Government.

  So it is to the constitution that a State’s citizens turn to find the answers to important questions about their own rights and about the legality of Government action.

  Most States have a codified constitution, i.e. a single document in which the most important rules of the constitution are set out. The UK does not have a codified constitution, but it does have laws and other non-legal rules establishing citizens’ rights, mechanisms for Government and limits on Government power.

  Some people in the UK think that it is time that those rules were codified into a single, authoritative legal document so that everyone knows where to find the rules and what they are. Others think that an uncodified constitution is ‘unnecessary, undesirable and un-British’.1

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  Constitutional Conventions in Westminster Systems

  Controversies, Changes and Challenges

  • Brian Galligan, Scott Brenton(Authors)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  Even among political systems within the Westminster tradition there are important differences. The particular political circumstances of each Westminster-derived polity give rise to numerous specific differences in how individual conventions are understood and practised (Bowden and MacDonald 2012: 394–7). One of the most important distinctions concerns those which operate within the context of a written constitution (e.g. Canada and Australia) and those which do not (e.g. the United Kingdom and New Zealand). Relatedly, there is an important distinction between the United Kingdom and the three other Commonwealth coun- tries in this respect: in the United Kingdom what is fundamentally at stake is the direct, unmediated legal powers of a hereditary monarch and a sovereign parliament, whereas in the former colonies, these original concentrations of executive and legislative power are legally mediated through appointed governors and derivative parliaments (in the case of federal Canada and Australia, multiple governments and parliaments in each country, with executive and legislative powers distributed between them). When this is combined, as in Canada and Australia, with the existence of a written constitution and constitutional judicial review, there is not quite the same urgent necessity to control the ‘raw’ power of Crown and parliament. Rather, where a written constitution exists, the debate about conventions usually revolves around conceptions of the relatively fixed political order that the constitution authoritatively estab- lishes as a matter of enforceable law. In other words, the existence, nature and scope of a convention is considered, not only in relation to a long- established set of practices and expectations, but in terms of its relation- ship to the ‘plan’ of government instituted by the written constitution (Walters 2008: 38; Gardner 2011).

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  The United States Constitution

  Questions and Answers

  • John R. Vile(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • ABC-CLIO

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 1 Foundations and Purposes of the United States Constitution AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONALISM AND ITS MOST BASIC PRINCIPLES What is a constitution? When Americans think about a constitution, they typically think of a written document, unchangeable by ordinary legislative means, which out- lines the major institutions of government, distributes and divides govern- mental powers among such institutions, and outlines basic protections for individual rights. Do all countries have a constitution? All governments except perhaps for those in a state of anarchy, or chaos, have a way of doing things, but not all have a single written document, like the U.S. Constitution, that serves as a guide to these practices and that can serve as a basis for legal action in cases where governments violate such guidelines. What are the alternatives to a written constitution? Leaders of dictatorial governments may prefer to operate solely according to their own wills rather than to be bound by a commitment to established procedures, but even democratic governments may not rely on a written constitution like that in the United States. The British government, for ex- ample, has what is known, not altogether accurately (since it is based in part on written documents), as an “unwritten” constitution. Britain has estab- lished relatively clear procedures for adopting laws, calling elections, and the like, but these are recognized as established customs and usages, or scat- tered in a variety of laws and decisions, rather than embodied in a single written document like the U.S. Constitution. Moreover, the English system operates according to the principle of parliamentary sovereignty, whereby whatever the established customs and usages may be, there are no fixed constitutional limits on the powers of the national legislature, or parliament.

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  Foundations of Democracy in the European Union

  From the Genesis of Parliamentary Democracy to the European Parliament

  • J. Pinder(Author)
  • 1999(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  One of the most misleading contrasts between British and American practice is the apparently unbridgeable distinction between the unwlitten and The US Constitution and British Political Roots 51 uncodified constitution in Britain and the written state and federal constitu- tions in the United States. Americans certainly rejected the Blackstonian proposition that there was no distinction between a constitution and a system of law, and William Paley's argument (made later) that the terms 'constitu- tional' and 'unconstitutional' meant only 'legal' and 'illegal' .20 Instead, they rested on the alternative principle that there was a controlling higher 'natural' law whose origins could be traced back to the mediaeval English writers Henry de Bracton and Sir John Fortescue and beyond into the classical world. 21 It was also implicit in the doctrine of the ancient constitution and was considered inherent in the charters of those colonies which had possessed them, and the common law as they believed it applied to them, and had been carried forward in the eighteenth-century common- wealthman tradition. It was thus firmly rooted in English thought albeit hidden behind the reigning doctrine, even if some of the quotations during the argument with Britain were drawn from Grotius and Pufendorf. What the states did was formalise uncodified traditional principles into a written code and structure. Similarly, Blackstone's doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty was overturned by the doctrine of popular sovereignty which underpins the federal constitution and state constitutions alike. The American principle that the people are the exclusive source of all legitimate authority was articulated with especial clarity in the Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776. It set out four central principles: That all men are by nature free and independent and have certain inherent rights ...

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  Foundations of Comparative Politics

  • Kenneth Newton, Jan W. van Deth(Authors)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  Some are contained in a single document, some refer to other docu- ments or to international agreements such as the UN Declaration of Human Rights (1948). Some have been changed comparatively frequently, others rarely. Some are old, some new. In a few cases, the constitution is said to be unwritten (Britain and Israel) but, in fact, it is better to refer to them as ‘uncodified’, because while much is written down, it is not consolidated in one main document. It is easy to obtain the constitution of every nation in the world from websites (see p. 90) so no examples are provided here. In spite of their huge variety, most constitutions fall into four main parts: Preamble • The preamble tends to be a declaration about nationhood and history, with references to important national events, symbols and aspirations. The preamble tends to be inspirational rather than legal or rational. Fundamental rights (Bill of Rights) • A list of civil and political rights and statements about the limits of government powers. Some constitutions refer also to economic, social and cultural rights. Many of the newer constitutions simply adopt the 1948 UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Institutions and offices of government • The main structures or institutions of government are described, together with their powers and duties. Usually this means the executive, legisla- tive and judicial branches of national government, and sometimes lower levels of govern- ment as well. Amendment • The procedures to be followed in amending the constitution. FOUNDATIONS OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 74 2. Transfer of power Democracies are marked by a peaceful transfer of power from one set of leaders or parties to another. Democratic constitutions typically state the conditions for this – how and when government is to be elected, by whom and for how long. The peaceful transfer of power is so important that some political scientists define a ‘democracy’ in these terms – e.g.

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  Duelling for Supremacy

  International Law vs. National Fundamental Principles

  • Fulvio Maria Palombino(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  19 United Kingdom Eirik Bjorge and Ewan Smith 1 introduction The most obvious feature of the British Constitution is that it lacks a constitutional text. The most important feature, however, is the supremacy of Parliament. This rule – that what Parliament enacts is supreme law – Parliament cannot readily entrench a Constitution that would bind future parliaments. 1 This is one reason why Britain lacks a written constitution. Instead, the British Constitution reflects a combination of statute, common law rules laid down by the courts, and convention. 2 Because Britain lacks a constitutional text, it lacks an original constitutional moment. 3 Instead, it has a historical Constitution 4 – a series of moments stretching from Magna Carta 1215, through the Bill of Rights 1688 and the Treaty of Union 1707, to more recent legislation such as the European Communities Act 1972 and the Human Rights Act 1998. Certain British constitutional rules, both statutory and common law, predate the modern British constitutional settlement by many hun- dreds of years. People argue about which moments are most salient and this debate, in turn, shapes the meaning of modern rules. 5 Together these three features of the UK constitution – its unwritten nature, its historical span, and its supreme legislature – affect the way international law is received. First, there is no code that might serve as a guide, so we begin in this chapter by setting out some elementary rules which, in our view, shape the reception of international law in the UK. By the standards of some constitutional orders, these rules are highly deferential to Parliament. 1 Ellen Street Estates v Minister of Health [1934] 1 KB 590. 2 A. V. Dicey, Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution (8th ed., Macmillan, 1915). 3 See B. Ackerman, We the People (Belknap Press, 1991). 4 See J. W. F. Allison, The English Historical Constitution: Continuity, Change and European Effects (CUP, 2007).

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  American Government

  Conflict, Compromise, And Citizenship

  • Christopher J Bosso, John Portz, Michael Tolley(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Thus, to be an American is to be a part of a legal and political system defined by a document over 200 years old. No wonder scholars and citizens alike study the Constitution to figure out exactly what “the framers intended” in the same way that Jews consult the Torah, Christians the Bible, or Muslims the Koran. And, as befits its sacred stature, an original parchment copy of the Constitution is protected, alongside an original copy of the Declaration of Independence, behind thick glass and steel within the National Archives on Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C.

  A POLITICAL DOCUMENT

  Americans’ faith in their political system has been a source of tremendous social and political stability in an often unstable world. Without that faith, the system, and the nation, probably would not have survived very long.

  Yet reverence can be overdone. The Constitution is not religious dogma. It does not demand unquestioning faith. It is a political document, the plan for a political system. It is a framework of rules and procedures under which citizens and their elected representatives engage in conflict and, where possible, transform that conflict into some workable compromise. In this sense any constitution is best understood as a compact among citizens that both empowers government and limits what it can do. It also provides the means by which citizens can change rules that no longer work. Nor is any constitution meant to be unchanging or eternal: It too is meant to change when it no longer serves the needs of the people.

  The Constitution of the United States did not spring suddenly from the admittedly fertile minds of its drafters. Certainly it reflects the keen intellects of a uniquely gifted set of leaders—among them George Washington, James Madison, and Benjamin Franklin—but much of its direction and substance was the product of hard political experience, sharp economic and social conflicts, and pressing necessity. The Constitution’s underlying political ideals and its formal structure of government are deeply rooted in the history of a people. The document reflects deep-seated beliefs about the rights and responsibilities of virtuous citizens, as well as acute fears about the inherent dangers of government left unchecked.

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