Unit 2
The UK constitution
* A constitution is a set of laws on how a country is governed.
* The British Constitution is an uncodified constitution.
* Allows for flexibility and change to occur without too many problems.
* Only constitutional experts who know where to look & how to interpret it have access to it.
* Amendments to Britain’s unwritten constitution are made by majority support in both Houses of Parliament to be followed by the Royal Assent.
* A historic feature of the UK constitution, the Royal Prerogative gives the Crown the power to declare war, to make treaties, to pardon criminals, and to dissolve Parliament.
* Today the role of the monarch in such matters is largely ceremonial, but the Royal Prerogative is general used by the PM.
* The single most important principle of the UK constitution is that of parliamentary sovereignty.
* Under this principle, Parliament can make or unmake any law on any subject whatsoever. No one Parliament is bound by the decisions of its predecessors, nor can it bind its successors.
* There is no higher body, such as a supreme court, that constrains the legal authority of Parliament.
* However, parliamentary sovereignty is now directly challenged by the UK's membership of the European Union, because EU membership necessitates the 'pooling' of sovereignty over areas where the member states have agreed to act together.
* All laws passed at the European level are considered legally superior to domestic law, and are ultimately protected by a higher constitutional court, the European Court of Justice and should European Community law and UK law conflict, EC law will prevail.
Sources of the British Constitution:
*Statutes such as the Magna Carta of 1215 and the Act of Settlement of 1701.
* Laws and Customs of Parliament
* political conventions
* Case law
* constitutional matters decided in a court of law
* Constitutional experts who have written on the subject such as Walter Bagehot and A.V Dicey.
Criticisms of the British Constitution:
* uncodified - not available to all the public and is too flexible.
* too much power to the executive - consitution does not bind government as it should.
* Archaic tradition/undemocratic - Monarch and the House of Lords have too much power constitutionally despite being undemocratic - undermines democracy.
* FPTP electoral system means majorities in government without majority of the vote - "elected dictatorship".