4 ms·

I stopped reading around: "Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law;" and something about (only) Ireland r

I stopped reading around: "Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law;" and something about (only) Ireland repealed it in [1]. In [2] it says, quite straight faced, that "The Constitution of the United Kingdom or British constitution comprises the written and unwritten arrangements that establish the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as a political body. Unlike in most countries, no attempt has been made to codify such arrangements into a single document. Thus, it is known as an uncodified constitution. This enables the constitution to be easily changed as no provisions are formally entrenched.[2] However, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom recognises that there are constitutional principles, including parliamentary sovereignty, the rule of law, democracy and upholding international law". There is no codified constitution but there are constitutional principles. Because it is not "entrenched" it can be easily changed. How can someone even say this without an Orwellian sneer? If a North Korean said that we would laugh them out of the room. Edit: North Korea does have a constitution. Written. Just not followed. Britain does not have a written constitution but it is followed (how?), except when it is not as in the wag that it just takes a minister's signature to violate an unwritten (but somehow codified) constitutional principle.

kortex 4y ago
“If you think for a minute, is it not the case that every dictator in the world has a bill of rights, every banana republic, every republic has a bill of rights?” - Antonin Scalia A constitution without the ecosystem and institutions to carry it out is meaningless paper. Institutions without a constitution, but with a long history of case law can be just. Governments are systems but people aren't computers and laws aren't source code.
- haltingproblem 4y ago
  This is a good train of thought even though you quoted Scalia who was a strict constructionist. Care to expand on it?
  - pfortuny 4y ago
    A constitution without separation of powers with the possibility of judging the representatives is worthless. The fact that doing so is difficult (the most blatant case being Nixon) does not make it worthless, it only helps granting the executive some stability (because it has usually been elected by the people, so it needs some berth to operate). In that sense, the US constitution is a very good early example. The independence of the judiciary is essential. I am not defending the US constitution per se, though.
mr_toad 4y ago
> Britain does not have a written constitution but it is followed (how?) Perhaps this is just a tacit admission that writing the rules on a piece of paper changes nothing. People follow the rules as a kind of collective consensus. Writing them down in one place wouldn’t change that.
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  "The English have a system that is no system, which is also a system, only better." - I have completely forgotten the quote source, but it is a lesser cited quip from a famous political philosopher.
hugh-avherald 4y ago
> Britain does not have a written constitution but it is followed (how?), Pretty much the same as in the US/Australia/etc where written constitutions exist: the courts strike down unconstitutional laws or acts.
- haltingproblem 4y ago
  In the absence of a written constitution whatever is unconstitutional is the ad-hoc interpretation of the Justices (or whatever they are called in the UK). There are arguments in the US about strict constructionists vs. judicial activism in regards to justices and judgements. How do those debates and decisions happen in the UK? Do they just go with whatever the Judiciary deem to be constitutional zeitgeist of the land?
  - dgellow 4y ago
    Don’t they use past decisions as juris-prudence? With centuries of constitutional decisions you start to have a good amount of records to base your judgement on. But generally speaking I feel that the “interpretation of the constitution” where judges have the responsibility to interpret century old documents is a very US thing, other democracies generally have a more recent constitution, and see it as a living document.
  - pjc50 4y ago
    Largely they don't. It's simply not a significant part of UK political discourse, unlike America where many important rights (even interracial marriage!) are the result of court decisions. It has only picked up in a couple of areas: the conflict of ECHR especially right not to be tortured and right to family life with UK immigration law. And of course around Brexit.
- Veen 4y ago
  They are the final court of appeal, but they can't strike down primary legislation because Parliament is sovereign. They can strike down secondary legislation and legislation that may be contrary to the Human Rights Act (with the agreement of parliament in many cases). They can make life difficult for the Government, but Parliament can always make new laws. I think the UK system is more democratic because it does not give the judiciary primacy over elected representatives.
pjc50 4y ago
> Because it is not "entrenched" it can be easily changed. Don't downvote him, he's right: we literally went round all this with the various Brexit cases. Especially "R (Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union": https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2016-0196-judgment.pdf https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2016-0196-judgme... 40. "Unlike most countries, the United Kingdom does not have a constitution in the sense of a single coherent code of fundamental law which prevails over all other sources of law" 43. "This is because Parliamentary sovereignty is a fundamental principle of the UK constitution, as was conclusively established in the statutes referred to in para 41 above. It was famously summarised by Professor Dicey as meaning that Parliament has “the right to make or unmake any law whatsoever; and further, no person or body is recognised by the law as having a right to override or set aside the legislation of Parliament” - op cit, p 38" If you have a majority in Parliament - which the current government does on 43% of the vote - you can do anything. That is the long and the short of it. All the rest you might think is there - bills of attainder, retroactive legislation, any kind of rights whatsoever - can be overwritten and it is merely convention not to do so. Longstanding convention, but convention none the less. Last bill of attainder was 1820, but you could argue that the Shamina Begum case was a similar thing with extra steps. The UK is currently subject to CJEU and ECHR external courts, but from a constitutional point of view that is "voluntary" and the government could also choose to withdraw from those just as it did from the EU.

kortex 4y ago

“If you think for a minute, is it not the case that every dictator in the world has a bill of rights, every banana republic, every republic has a bill of rights?” - Antonin Scalia A constitution without the ecosystem and institutions to carry it out is meaningless paper. Institutions without a constitution, but with a long history of case law can be just. Governments are systems but people aren't computers and laws aren't source code.

haltingproblem 4y ago
This is a good train of thought even though you quoted Scalia who was a strict constructionist. Care to expand on it?
- pfortuny 4y ago
  A constitution without separation of powers with the possibility of judging the representatives is worthless. The fact that doing so is difficult (the most blatant case being Nixon) does not make it worthless, it only helps granting the executive some stability (because it has usually been elected by the people, so it needs some berth to operate). In that sense, the US constitution is a very good early example. The independence of the judiciary is essential. I am not defending the US constitution per se, though.

mr_toad 4y ago

> Britain does not have a written constitution but it is followed (how?) Perhaps this is just a tacit admission that writing the rules on a piece of paper changes nothing. People follow the rules as a kind of collective consensus. Writing them down in one place wouldn’t change that.

nonrandomstring 4y ago
"The English have a system that is no system, which is also a system, only better." - I have completely forgotten the quote source, but it is a lesser cited quip from a famous political philosopher.

hugh-avherald 4y ago

> Britain does not have a written constitution but it is followed (how?), Pretty much the same as in the US/Australia/etc where written constitutions exist: the courts strike down unconstitutional laws or acts.

haltingproblem 4y ago
In the absence of a written constitution whatever is unconstitutional is the ad-hoc interpretation of the Justices (or whatever they are called in the UK). There are arguments in the US about strict constructionists vs. judicial activism in regards to justices and judgements. How do those debates and decisions happen in the UK? Do they just go with whatever the Judiciary deem to be constitutional zeitgeist of the land?
- dgellow 4y ago
  Don’t they use past decisions as juris-prudence? With centuries of constitutional decisions you start to have a good amount of records to base your judgement on. But generally speaking I feel that the “interpretation of the constitution” where judges have the responsibility to interpret century old documents is a very US thing, other democracies generally have a more recent constitution, and see it as a living document.
- pjc50 4y ago
  Largely they don't. It's simply not a significant part of UK political discourse, unlike America where many important rights (even interracial marriage!) are the result of court decisions. It has only picked up in a couple of areas: the conflict of ECHR especially right not to be tortured and right to family life with UK immigration law. And of course around Brexit.
Veen 4y ago
They are the final court of appeal, but they can't strike down primary legislation because Parliament is sovereign. They can strike down secondary legislation and legislation that may be contrary to the Human Rights Act (with the agreement of parliament in many cases). They can make life difficult for the Government, but Parliament can always make new laws. I think the UK system is more democratic because it does not give the judiciary primacy over elected representatives.

pjc50 4y ago

> Because it is not "entrenched" it can be easily changed. Don't downvote him, he's right: we literally went round all this with the various Brexit cases. Especially "R (Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union": https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2016-0196-judgment.pdf https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2016-0196-judgme... 40. "Unlike most countries, the United Kingdom does not have a constitution in the sense of a single coherent code of fundamental law which prevails over all other sources of law" 43. "This is because Parliamentary sovereignty is a fundamental principle of the UK constitution, as was conclusively established in the statutes referred to in para 41 above. It was famously summarised by Professor Dicey as meaning that Parliament has “the right to make or unmake any law whatsoever; and further, no person or body is recognised by the law as having a right to override or set aside the legislation of Parliament” - op cit, p 38" If you have a majority in Parliament - which the current government does on 43% of the vote - you can do anything. That is the long and the short of it. All the rest you might think is there - bills of attainder, retroactive legislation, any kind of rights whatsoever - can be overwritten and it is merely convention not to do so. Longstanding convention, but convention none the less. Last bill of attainder was 1820, but you could argue that the Shamina Begum case was a similar thing with extra steps. The UK is currently subject to CJEU and ECHR external courts, but from a constitutional point of view that is "voluntary" and the government could also choose to withdraw from those just as it did from the EU.