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Not sure a constitution necessarily helps. In this case, the Human Rights legislation is acting like a constitution in the sense that it's a benchmark that laws

Not sure a constitution necessarily helps. In this case, the Human Rights legislation is acting like a constitution in the sense that it's a benchmark that laws are being held to. A constitution can sometimes be a fairly negative thing. You regularly see US decisions being made against the Constitution where it blatantly isn't applicable. You rarely (ever?) see SCOTUS saying that the Constitution doesn't apply so it needs to go back to Congress for a more applicable law. In other words a Constitution starts to resemble a religious document that has the answer to every conceivable problem if only a priest can interpret it.

di4na 9y ago
The french constitutional court does exactly that. Send the law back to parliament.
jkaplowitz 9y ago
What would it mean for the US Constitution not to apply to a law within the US? For a federal law, either it's within Congress's specifically enumerated and limited powers (as interpreted by SCOTUS) and therefore valid, or else the law is invalid. For a state law, the US Supreme Court will only base their ruling on the US Constitution if anything legally binding at the federal level (including but not limited to the Constitution) forbids or allows that state law. Otherwise, SCOTUS and every other court will defer on state law to the state Constitution as interpreted by state courts, but from a federal constitutional perspective, states can pass whatever laws aren't federally forbidden.
- lucozade 9y ago
  As an obvious example, the 5th Amendment blatantly didn't have anything to do with passwords. The whole idea is a bit silly. The sensible thing to do would be to say that the Constitution has nothing much to say on many issues relating to modern technology and deal with it accordingly. Same goes with guns. If you want everyone to be armed then fine. That's your prerogative. But the Constitution clearly didn't mean for everyone and their mom to be tooled up with semi-automatic weaponry. I mean, just how legal are militias in the US? Because they're the reason you should be carrying. It was clearly a document of its time. And one of international importance. But the religious zeal to which it is adhered to is highly questionable. Now, it's not like we're perfect in the UK or anything. But if someone tried to justify something to do with smartphones or terrorism by referencing Magna Carta or the Bill of Rights, we'd probably take a step back and give them a napkin for the mouth frothing.

di4na 9y ago

The french constitutional court does exactly that. Send the law back to parliament.

jkaplowitz 9y ago

What would it mean for the US Constitution not to apply to a law within the US? For a federal law, either it's within Congress's specifically enumerated and limited powers (as interpreted by SCOTUS) and therefore valid, or else the law is invalid. For a state law, the US Supreme Court will only base their ruling on the US Constitution if anything legally binding at the federal level (including but not limited to the Constitution) forbids or allows that state law. Otherwise, SCOTUS and every other court will defer on state law to the state Constitution as interpreted by state courts, but from a federal constitutional perspective, states can pass whatever laws aren't federally forbidden.

lucozade 9y ago
As an obvious example, the 5th Amendment blatantly didn't have anything to do with passwords. The whole idea is a bit silly. The sensible thing to do would be to say that the Constitution has nothing much to say on many issues relating to modern technology and deal with it accordingly. Same goes with guns. If you want everyone to be armed then fine. That's your prerogative. But the Constitution clearly didn't mean for everyone and their mom to be tooled up with semi-automatic weaponry. I mean, just how legal are militias in the US? Because they're the reason you should be carrying. It was clearly a document of its time. And one of international importance. But the religious zeal to which it is adhered to is highly questionable. Now, it's not like we're perfect in the UK or anything. But if someone tried to justify something to do with smartphones or terrorism by referencing Magna Carta or the Bill of Rights, we'd probably take a step back and give them a napkin for the mouth frothing.