6 ms·

> It's worth noting that UK courts can't overturn Acts of Parliament. Interesting. I didn't know this, and as an American, it seems quite odd. Decisions by the

> It's worth noting that UK courts can't overturn Acts of Parliament. Interesting. I didn't know this, and as an American, it seems quite odd. Decisions by the parliament are treated as immutable there? Here, if a bill passed by Congress is deemed unconstitutional, it can be struck down by the Supreme Court.

arethuza 3y ago
They aren't immutable, but they can only be changed by Parliament: "the courts cannot overrule its legislation and no Parliament can pass laws that future Parliaments cannot change. Parliamentary sovereignty is the most important part of the UK constitution" https://www.parliament.uk/about/how/role/sovereignty/ https://www.parliament.uk/about/how/role/sovereignty/
denton-scratch 3y ago
The only constitution that the UK has consists of Acts of Parliament. So I don't know why it should seem odd; the US courts can't strike clauses of the US Constitution, and the UK courts can't strike Acts. Amusingly, the UK government is currently trying to pass an Act to the effect that black is equivalent to white, i.e. that Rwanda is a safe country to which asylum seekers can be sent. This is analogous to the State of Indiana trying to legislate that the value of Pi shall be 3.2. You can't legislate a fact.
- aftbit 3y ago
  In the US, it's quite hard to change the constitution. It requires agreement from 2/3rds of Congress followed by ratification by the individual legislatures of 3/4ths of the states. Such a thing has not been done since 1992, and not on a politically charged question since 1971.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    There is also a convention of the states that can change the constitution. It has been talked about by various groups from time to time, but has never happened.
    - etothepii 3y ago
      Are you sure? Isn't that how the ban on alcohol was lifted?
      - bluGill 3y ago
        good question. I'm not clear after reading Wikipedia how that happened. US congress called for this which is how amendments are normally handled, but then it seems to have done something weird. I'm not interested enough in the question to dig deeper to figure out what is what. I'll leave this as a "I stand corrected" but if you care do dig deeper.
      - matthewowen 3y ago
        There are two types of constitutional convention. State ratifying conventions, which you are correct is the way that the 21st amendment was ratified by the states after having received a two thirds majority in congress: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_ratifying_conventions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_ratifying_conventions Article V conventions, which replace the legislature stage but then need to be ratified by the states either by the legislatures or by a state ratifying convention: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_to_propose_amendments_to_the_United_States_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_to_propose_amendmen... the latter has never happened and the constitution is very vague about what they would entail, and I think is what the earlier poster was referencing (there has been some recent noise around them) this graphic is quite helpful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_ratifying_conventions#/media/File:Constitutional_amendment_process_(USA).png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_ratifying_conventions#/m...
      - pyuser583 3y ago
        Ban on alcohol was lifted by 2/3 of each house approving. Instead of going to the state legislators, it went to state conventions convened specifically for that purpose.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > Such a thing has not been done since 1992 We’re a 235-year old republic. Changing the firmware once every 10 to 15% of the time seems fine. > and not on a politically charged question since 1971 This is a feature. If a question is charged it should be resolved first federally, through the states, and then politically, via the legislature. Only once there is consensus should it be elevated to Constitutional status. That is the only way to get a Constitution Americans believe in with intergenerational force.
    - idontpost 3y ago
      [dead]
    - Gormo 3y ago
      And given that the point of a constitution is to set the bounds within policy-making takes place, rather than to enact policy on any specific issue, this is a very important thing. Past attempts to shoehorn answers to specific policy questions into the constitution have been disasters, but even if they hadn't been, using constitutional amendment as a vehicle for policy is effectively the same as having no constitution at all.
    - jltsiren 3y ago
      I believe that a constitution should get a full rewrite once every 50-60 years. That's to only way to ensure that the constitution remains legitimate and relevant. The US does not really have a constitution. There is a set of documents that claims to be the constitution, but it's so out of date that it can't serve as one. Then there is the Supreme Court, which can change the actual constitution easily with its creative interpretations. Because there is no need for a widespread consensus for changing the constitution, its legitimacy remains questionable at best.
      - Andrex 3y ago
        The Constitution is a divining rod to cut through hundreds of years of patchwork caselaw and legislation. Its true use is in a psychological "what would God/The Constitution want?" sense. Does it make rational sense? Not really, but my reading of history shows a stronger national identity if tied to something "beyond." Whether that be God, Pharaoh, the Founding Fathers, what have you.
- light_hue_1 3y ago
  It's definitely odd! That's not a reason for UK courts not to strike down acts, or more properly, to have judicial review. Take Canada. Canada has a Supreme Court and no written constitution. The formal divorce between Canada and the UK was not long ago so we inherited the same legal framework (modulo Quebec but it doesn't play a role here). Yet the Canadian Supreme Court can and does strike down federal laws! Actually, provincial courts can too, and then the federal government gets to appeal to them to the Supreme Court if it wishes. Take Israel. There's no written constitution. Just the Basic Laws. They're just laws, they can be amended at any time. Yet, the Supreme Court can and does strike down laws. It's even striking down changes to the Basic Laws. That's part of the current political strife. There is a worldwide movement for judicial review. Usually, supreme courts start with conservative powers and then grow them. Judicial review is not explicitly called out in the US constitution either. The US Supreme Court had to assert that it can strike down unconstitutional laws. This took about 15 years and some careful wrangling. The particular argument of Marbury v. Madison doesn't apply to the UKSC of course. But there are already law review articles spelling out other legal theories that could be used to assert that the UKSC has the power to strike down Acts. I suspect the UKSC will follow other supreme courts and free themselves of Parliament in the coming decades.
  - smnrchrds 3y ago
    Canada's constitution has written and unwritten parts. The Constitution Act of 1982 (which includes the Charter of Rights and Freedoms), for example, is a written part of Canada's constitution. Changing the charter would require the procedure for constitutional change, which is rather difficult. It's not something that can be amended like a normal act of the parliament.
    - light_hue_1 3y ago
      That's fair. I was using the term "written constitution" from the perspective of a US reader. There's no document that says "I'm the constitution, that's it". Canada works under the idea of an open constitution. There's a collection of documents that become entrenched and are considered part of the constitution. There are endless debates about exactly which documents should be considered. Since the amending formula has made changes impossible, basically all we can do is hope the Court will expand the constitution in a way that serves the public. It's unclear that we really wanted to give the Supreme Court this power. And some argue that this makes the Canadian Supreme Court the most powerful one in the world. Certainly not even the US Supreme Court can decide the contents of the Constitution, only its interpretation. And that's before we get to Quebec and their crazy theory about what section 45 means which would make the whole idea of a constitution a mess. And of course, we're not going to mention the notwithstanding clause.
- logifail 3y ago
  > that Rwanda is a safe country to which asylum seekers can be sent Putting aside whether the UK government's approach is a sensible one (which in my view it isn't) we should be aware that: "the UNHCR, with financial support from the EU, has transferred refugees from Libya to Rwanda under a scheme called the Emergency Transit Mechanism (ETM) [..] The ETM offers vulnerable refugees, taken into detention by the Libyan authorities, a choice to have their application processed in Rwanda."[0] "In 2019, the [Rwandan] Government established the Emergency Transit Mechanism (ETM) Centre that hosted 824 refugees evacuated from Libya. Currently, the transit centre hosts 371 evacuees while working on long-term solutions continues. By the end of 2021, 462 refugees had resettled to third countries so far."[1] So Rwanda was apparently safe enough for the UNHCR to offer to process some refugees there. [0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67431602 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67431602 [1] https://www.unhcr.org/uk/countries/rwanda https://www.unhcr.org/uk/countries/rwanda
  - Aeolun 3y ago
    > So Rwanda was apparently safe enough for the UNHCR to offer to process some refugees there. I think the key word here is safer. It wasn’t safe by any definition of the word, but a fair deal safer than the place they came from.
    - logifail 3y ago
      > It wasn’t safe by any definition of the word, but a fair deal safer than the place they came from (Playing devil's advocate) why would this not also apply to those refugees fleeing to Europe? Isn't Rwanda "a fair deal safer" than Afghanistan? (This is a genuine question)
      - tpm 3y ago
        When they are being removed from the UK to Rwanda (which is the aim of UK government), "the place they came from" is the UK.
        logifail 3y ago
- Andrex 3y ago
  "Safe" is a judgment call, the value of pi is not.
- penteract 3y ago
  > The only constitution that the UK has consists of Acts of Parliament. That's not completely accurate. The UK has an unwritten constitution, consisting of how everybody knows things work.
  - Silhouette 3y ago
    Unfortunately we've seen several times recently that not everyone "knows" things work the same way. A lot of what is "known" might be accepted by Parliament and our courts today but has historical foundations that we might generously call shaky if you look more closely into their origins. If you're claiming to be a democracy but no-one really knows exactly what your constitutional foundations and system of government are and there is no clear mechanism for the people to change them then are you really a democracy or are you just playing one on TV? For now we have a system where we elect MPs using a deeply flawed voting method on a timetable that MPs themselves can change any time they like, those MPs then result in a Prime Minister being appointed, that Prime Minister then forms a government in largely presidential fashion, the members of that government with executive authority wield much of the real power despite being at least three degrees removed from any popular mandate, and the main check to prevent this system running wild is a second house that is unelected and increasingly consists of political cronies with no particular qualifications except being mates with a previous Prime Minister. this_is_fine.jpg meme
- cscurmudgeon 3y ago
  pi is objective. Lets be objective here for safety: https://www.numbeo.com/crime/compare_countries_result.jsp?country1=Rwanda&country2=United+Kingdom https://www.numbeo.com/crime/compare_countries_result.jsp?co... Rwanda is safe
  - getwiththeprog 3y ago
    Numbeo lists no sources, is not peer reviewed and provides statistics to questions such as "Worries home broken and things stolen". Perhaps not a valid source then? Objectivity does not come from a website. edit: the data comes from visitors to the website.
- pyuser583 3y ago
  US Courts can strike down clauses in the constitution. Any amendment that deprives a state of its senators is unconstitutional. Many states have “unconstitutional amendment clauses.”
pjc50 3y ago
Yeah, I don't think it's quite as simple as commentators are making out, because ECJ rulings have roughly constitutional-level effects in disapplying Acts.
- blibble 3y ago
  only because Parliament allowed it to be so by passing the European Communities Act 1972 this power was removed by one line in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018: > The European Communities Act 1972 is repealed on exit day. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/16/pdfs/ukpga_20180016_en.pdf https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/16/pdfs/ukpga_2018...
TillE 3y ago
Judicial review isn't necessarily an obvious or completely desirable concept. It's not in the US Constitution either, and Marbury v. Madison is still somewhat controversial.
- Gormo 3y ago
  From the outset, officials in all branches of government have sworn an oath to uphold the constitution in the conduct of their duties, and the constitution explicitly states that it is the supreme federal law, so it seems that Marbury vs. Madison would follow logically from the justices' obligation to only issue rulings consistent with the constitution as they understand it. One could regard the legislature as having an equivalent duty to refrain from enacting statutes incompatible with the constitution, and the executive as having an equivalent duty to refrain from enforcement actions inconsistent with the constitution, but historically, the judiciary seems to have been the only branch to take its duty seriously.
glitchc 3y ago
Yup, that's because the UK doesn't have a constitution.
- arethuza 3y ago
  It doesn't have a codified constitution in the US sense but it does have a constitution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_Kin... Edit: I would certainly agree that having constitution in this form isn't a great idea...
  - bemusedthrow75 3y ago
    A written constitution doesn't really seem to work out better, though, does it?
  - simonh 3y ago
    Frankly, the US system isn't exactly a resounding vindication of written constitutions either. Arguably the UK system has displayed considerably greater flexibility. For example the US president is still basically an elected George III.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- dfawcus 3y ago
  Well it does, in written bits in various places, and some as precedent. However it is a bit more complex. England has a constitution (that collection above), Scotland has a different (and somewhat incompatible) constitution. The incompatibility being where the seat of Sovereignty lies. In Scotland with the people, in England with the Monarch (but wrested away by Parliament). So when the two countries formed the new state of Great Britain, and dissolved their prior states, they granted it a minimal constitution. However they couldn't grant more than they had, and the Scottish grantors did not hold sovereignty. Hence claiming that UK Parliament is sovereign is to presume that England annexed Scotland. That continuing incompatibility is (IMO) why we've never had a single written GB/UK constitution, and probably never will. It will require addressing the fact that we're acting as if Scotland was annexed, and to put that in writing will cause its own problems.
bemusedthrow75 3y ago
> Decisions by the parliament are treated as immutable there? Yes, and no. Parliament is sovereign -- it is the supreme legal authority. But it cannot bind its successors. So any law parliament creates, any decision can be overturned by a subsequent parliament.
- sorokod 3y ago
  Is that not similar to how the US constitution is managed? It was amended and latter un-amended in the case of prohibition (18th and 21st amendments)
  - bemusedthrow75 3y ago
    The "parliament cannot bind its successors" principle was absolutely (and deliberately) imported into US law, yes. It's more general -- no branch of government can bind its own successors. (With the exception of e.g. presidential pardons which cannot be undone)
    - Aeolun 3y ago
      I think this is generally true? It’d be weird if there were some laws from 30 years ago that nobody wanted, but were not legally allowed to be changed. You’d just change them anyway and nobody would care.
      - bemusedthrow75 3y ago
        It's generally true precisely because British parliamentary democracy formalised the concept, mind you. Before that, yes, rulers made laws that would perpetually benefit them and their successors.
dukeyukey 3y ago
Parliament is sovereign. Basically, as long as Parliament says so, it can do what it wants, although it can be slowed down by institutions like the Supreme Court or the royal family. There is no real separation powers. Which _sounds_ bad, but the UK has an extremely long history of relative stability compared to basically anywhere else on the planet, so something must be going right.
- sorokod 3y ago
  This stability presupposes a presence of adults in the room.
  - pmyteh 3y ago
    It's sometimes described as the 'good chap' theory of governance. Everyone is expected to be a gentleman, so flexibility is possible with an absence of formal guardrails. It obviously handles capture by bad faith actors fairly poorly; the hope is that such people or movements can be stopped before they get that far. Johnson was pretty marginal as a PM from this point of view.
    - sorokod 3y ago
      Thanks, haven't heard of the 'good chap' theory of governance before. Lovely name that emphasizes how inadequate such system is in the 21st century. Or perhaps it was never adequate: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/37844/has-the-good-chaps-theory-of-government-always-been-a-myth https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/37844/has-the-go...
- ben_w 3y ago
  > Which _sounds_ bad, but the UK has an extremely long history of relative stability compared to basically anywhere else on the planet, so something must be going right. The more I learn about British history, the more I think this reputation for stability is merely due to how well all the civil wars (and parliament inviting in a new royal family) were brushed over.
pyuser583 3y ago
The idea is once the Crown issues letters patent, it’s the law. In the recent past, legislation was reviewed for constitutionality by a committee in the House of Lords, called Law Lords. In the 2000s, the Law Lords were rebranded as the “UK Supreme Court”. But the idea is still that once the legislative process is done, the result is a law.

arethuza 3y ago

They aren't immutable, but they can only be changed by Parliament: "the courts cannot overrule its legislation and no Parliament can pass laws that future Parliaments cannot change. Parliamentary sovereignty is the most important part of the UK constitution" https://www.parliament.uk/about/how/role/sovereignty/ https://www.parliament.uk/about/how/role/sovereignty/

denton-scratch 3y ago

The only constitution that the UK has consists of Acts of Parliament. So I don't know why it should seem odd; the US courts can't strike clauses of the US Constitution, and the UK courts can't strike Acts. Amusingly, the UK government is currently trying to pass an Act to the effect that black is equivalent to white, i.e. that Rwanda is a safe country to which asylum seekers can be sent. This is analogous to the State of Indiana trying to legislate that the value of Pi shall be 3.2. You can't legislate a fact.

aftbit 3y ago
In the US, it's quite hard to change the constitution. It requires agreement from 2/3rds of Congress followed by ratification by the individual legislatures of 3/4ths of the states. Such a thing has not been done since 1992, and not on a politically charged question since 1971.
- bluGill 3y ago
  There is also a convention of the states that can change the constitution. It has been talked about by various groups from time to time, but has never happened.
  - etothepii 3y ago
    Are you sure? Isn't that how the ban on alcohol was lifted?
    - bluGill 3y ago
      good question. I'm not clear after reading Wikipedia how that happened. US congress called for this which is how amendments are normally handled, but then it seems to have done something weird. I'm not interested enough in the question to dig deeper to figure out what is what. I'll leave this as a "I stand corrected" but if you care do dig deeper.
    - matthewowen 3y ago
      There are two types of constitutional convention. State ratifying conventions, which you are correct is the way that the 21st amendment was ratified by the states after having received a two thirds majority in congress: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_ratifying_conventions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_ratifying_conventions Article V conventions, which replace the legislature stage but then need to be ratified by the states either by the legislatures or by a state ratifying convention: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_to_propose_amendments_to_the_United_States_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_to_propose_amendmen... the latter has never happened and the constitution is very vague about what they would entail, and I think is what the earlier poster was referencing (there has been some recent noise around them) this graphic is quite helpful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_ratifying_conventions#/media/File:Constitutional_amendment_process_(USA).png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_ratifying_conventions#/m...
    - pyuser583 3y ago
      Ban on alcohol was lifted by 2/3 of each house approving. Instead of going to the state legislators, it went to state conventions convened specifically for that purpose.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > Such a thing has not been done since 1992 We’re a 235-year old republic. Changing the firmware once every 10 to 15% of the time seems fine. > and not on a politically charged question since 1971 This is a feature. If a question is charged it should be resolved first federally, through the states, and then politically, via the legislature. Only once there is consensus should it be elevated to Constitutional status. That is the only way to get a Constitution Americans believe in with intergenerational force.
  - idontpost 3y ago
    [dead]
  - Gormo 3y ago
    And given that the point of a constitution is to set the bounds within policy-making takes place, rather than to enact policy on any specific issue, this is a very important thing. Past attempts to shoehorn answers to specific policy questions into the constitution have been disasters, but even if they hadn't been, using constitutional amendment as a vehicle for policy is effectively the same as having no constitution at all.
  - jltsiren 3y ago
    I believe that a constitution should get a full rewrite once every 50-60 years. That's to only way to ensure that the constitution remains legitimate and relevant. The US does not really have a constitution. There is a set of documents that claims to be the constitution, but it's so out of date that it can't serve as one. Then there is the Supreme Court, which can change the actual constitution easily with its creative interpretations. Because there is no need for a widespread consensus for changing the constitution, its legitimacy remains questionable at best.
    - Andrex 3y ago
      The Constitution is a divining rod to cut through hundreds of years of patchwork caselaw and legislation. Its true use is in a psychological "what would God/The Constitution want?" sense. Does it make rational sense? Not really, but my reading of history shows a stronger national identity if tied to something "beyond." Whether that be God, Pharaoh, the Founding Fathers, what have you.
light_hue_1 3y ago
It's definitely odd! That's not a reason for UK courts not to strike down acts, or more properly, to have judicial review. Take Canada. Canada has a Supreme Court and no written constitution. The formal divorce between Canada and the UK was not long ago so we inherited the same legal framework (modulo Quebec but it doesn't play a role here). Yet the Canadian Supreme Court can and does strike down federal laws! Actually, provincial courts can too, and then the federal government gets to appeal to them to the Supreme Court if it wishes. Take Israel. There's no written constitution. Just the Basic Laws. They're just laws, they can be amended at any time. Yet, the Supreme Court can and does strike down laws. It's even striking down changes to the Basic Laws. That's part of the current political strife. There is a worldwide movement for judicial review. Usually, supreme courts start with conservative powers and then grow them. Judicial review is not explicitly called out in the US constitution either. The US Supreme Court had to assert that it can strike down unconstitutional laws. This took about 15 years and some careful wrangling. The particular argument of Marbury v. Madison doesn't apply to the UKSC of course. But there are already law review articles spelling out other legal theories that could be used to assert that the UKSC has the power to strike down Acts. I suspect the UKSC will follow other supreme courts and free themselves of Parliament in the coming decades.
- smnrchrds 3y ago
  Canada's constitution has written and unwritten parts. The Constitution Act of 1982 (which includes the Charter of Rights and Freedoms), for example, is a written part of Canada's constitution. Changing the charter would require the procedure for constitutional change, which is rather difficult. It's not something that can be amended like a normal act of the parliament.
  - light_hue_1 3y ago
    That's fair. I was using the term "written constitution" from the perspective of a US reader. There's no document that says "I'm the constitution, that's it". Canada works under the idea of an open constitution. There's a collection of documents that become entrenched and are considered part of the constitution. There are endless debates about exactly which documents should be considered. Since the amending formula has made changes impossible, basically all we can do is hope the Court will expand the constitution in a way that serves the public. It's unclear that we really wanted to give the Supreme Court this power. And some argue that this makes the Canadian Supreme Court the most powerful one in the world. Certainly not even the US Supreme Court can decide the contents of the Constitution, only its interpretation. And that's before we get to Quebec and their crazy theory about what section 45 means which would make the whole idea of a constitution a mess. And of course, we're not going to mention the notwithstanding clause.
logifail 3y ago
> that Rwanda is a safe country to which asylum seekers can be sent Putting aside whether the UK government's approach is a sensible one (which in my view it isn't) we should be aware that: "the UNHCR, with financial support from the EU, has transferred refugees from Libya to Rwanda under a scheme called the Emergency Transit Mechanism (ETM) [..] The ETM offers vulnerable refugees, taken into detention by the Libyan authorities, a choice to have their application processed in Rwanda."[0] "In 2019, the [Rwandan] Government established the Emergency Transit Mechanism (ETM) Centre that hosted 824 refugees evacuated from Libya. Currently, the transit centre hosts 371 evacuees while working on long-term solutions continues. By the end of 2021, 462 refugees had resettled to third countries so far."[1] So Rwanda was apparently safe enough for the UNHCR to offer to process some refugees there. [0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67431602 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67431602 [1] https://www.unhcr.org/uk/countries/rwanda https://www.unhcr.org/uk/countries/rwanda
- Aeolun 3y ago
  > So Rwanda was apparently safe enough for the UNHCR to offer to process some refugees there. I think the key word here is safer. It wasn’t safe by any definition of the word, but a fair deal safer than the place they came from.
  - logifail 3y ago
    > It wasn’t safe by any definition of the word, but a fair deal safer than the place they came from (Playing devil's advocate) why would this not also apply to those refugees fleeing to Europe? Isn't Rwanda "a fair deal safer" than Afghanistan? (This is a genuine question)
    - tpm 3y ago
      When they are being removed from the UK to Rwanda (which is the aim of UK government), "the place they came from" is the UK.
      - logifail 3y ago
Andrex 3y ago
"Safe" is a judgment call, the value of pi is not.
penteract 3y ago
> The only constitution that the UK has consists of Acts of Parliament. That's not completely accurate. The UK has an unwritten constitution, consisting of how everybody knows things work.
- Silhouette 3y ago
  Unfortunately we've seen several times recently that not everyone "knows" things work the same way. A lot of what is "known" might be accepted by Parliament and our courts today but has historical foundations that we might generously call shaky if you look more closely into their origins. If you're claiming to be a democracy but no-one really knows exactly what your constitutional foundations and system of government are and there is no clear mechanism for the people to change them then are you really a democracy or are you just playing one on TV? For now we have a system where we elect MPs using a deeply flawed voting method on a timetable that MPs themselves can change any time they like, those MPs then result in a Prime Minister being appointed, that Prime Minister then forms a government in largely presidential fashion, the members of that government with executive authority wield much of the real power despite being at least three degrees removed from any popular mandate, and the main check to prevent this system running wild is a second house that is unelected and increasingly consists of political cronies with no particular qualifications except being mates with a previous Prime Minister. this_is_fine.jpg meme
cscurmudgeon 3y ago
pi is objective. Lets be objective here for safety: https://www.numbeo.com/crime/compare_countries_result.jsp?country1=Rwanda&country2=United+Kingdom https://www.numbeo.com/crime/compare_countries_result.jsp?co... Rwanda is safe
- getwiththeprog 3y ago
  Numbeo lists no sources, is not peer reviewed and provides statistics to questions such as "Worries home broken and things stolen". Perhaps not a valid source then? Objectivity does not come from a website. edit: the data comes from visitors to the website.
pyuser583 3y ago
US Courts can strike down clauses in the constitution. Any amendment that deprives a state of its senators is unconstitutional. Many states have “unconstitutional amendment clauses.”

pjc50 3y ago

Yeah, I don't think it's quite as simple as commentators are making out, because ECJ rulings have roughly constitutional-level effects in disapplying Acts.

blibble 3y ago
only because Parliament allowed it to be so by passing the European Communities Act 1972 this power was removed by one line in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018: > The European Communities Act 1972 is repealed on exit day. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/16/pdfs/ukpga_20180016_en.pdf https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/16/pdfs/ukpga_2018...

TillE 3y ago

Judicial review isn't necessarily an obvious or completely desirable concept. It's not in the US Constitution either, and Marbury v. Madison is still somewhat controversial.

Gormo 3y ago
From the outset, officials in all branches of government have sworn an oath to uphold the constitution in the conduct of their duties, and the constitution explicitly states that it is the supreme federal law, so it seems that Marbury vs. Madison would follow logically from the justices' obligation to only issue rulings consistent with the constitution as they understand it. One could regard the legislature as having an equivalent duty to refrain from enacting statutes incompatible with the constitution, and the executive as having an equivalent duty to refrain from enforcement actions inconsistent with the constitution, but historically, the judiciary seems to have been the only branch to take its duty seriously.

glitchc 3y ago

Yup, that's because the UK doesn't have a constitution.

arethuza 3y ago
It doesn't have a codified constitution in the US sense but it does have a constitution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_Kin... Edit: I would certainly agree that having constitution in this form isn't a great idea...
- bemusedthrow75 3y ago
  A written constitution doesn't really seem to work out better, though, does it?
- simonh 3y ago
  Frankly, the US system isn't exactly a resounding vindication of written constitutions either. Arguably the UK system has displayed considerably greater flexibility. For example the US president is still basically an elected George III.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
dfawcus 3y ago
Well it does, in written bits in various places, and some as precedent. However it is a bit more complex. England has a constitution (that collection above), Scotland has a different (and somewhat incompatible) constitution. The incompatibility being where the seat of Sovereignty lies. In Scotland with the people, in England with the Monarch (but wrested away by Parliament). So when the two countries formed the new state of Great Britain, and dissolved their prior states, they granted it a minimal constitution. However they couldn't grant more than they had, and the Scottish grantors did not hold sovereignty. Hence claiming that UK Parliament is sovereign is to presume that England annexed Scotland. That continuing incompatibility is (IMO) why we've never had a single written GB/UK constitution, and probably never will. It will require addressing the fact that we're acting as if Scotland was annexed, and to put that in writing will cause its own problems.

bemusedthrow75 3y ago

> Decisions by the parliament are treated as immutable there? Yes, and no. Parliament is sovereign -- it is the supreme legal authority. But it cannot bind its successors. So any law parliament creates, any decision can be overturned by a subsequent parliament.

sorokod 3y ago
Is that not similar to how the US constitution is managed? It was amended and latter un-amended in the case of prohibition (18th and 21st amendments)
- bemusedthrow75 3y ago
  The "parliament cannot bind its successors" principle was absolutely (and deliberately) imported into US law, yes. It's more general -- no branch of government can bind its own successors. (With the exception of e.g. presidential pardons which cannot be undone)
  - Aeolun 3y ago
    I think this is generally true? It’d be weird if there were some laws from 30 years ago that nobody wanted, but were not legally allowed to be changed. You’d just change them anyway and nobody would care.
    - bemusedthrow75 3y ago
      It's generally true precisely because British parliamentary democracy formalised the concept, mind you. Before that, yes, rulers made laws that would perpetually benefit them and their successors.

dukeyukey 3y ago

Parliament is sovereign. Basically, as long as Parliament says so, it can do what it wants, although it can be slowed down by institutions like the Supreme Court or the royal family. There is no real separation powers. Which _sounds_ bad, but the UK has an extremely long history of relative stability compared to basically anywhere else on the planet, so something must be going right.

sorokod 3y ago
This stability presupposes a presence of adults in the room.
- pmyteh 3y ago
  It's sometimes described as the 'good chap' theory of governance. Everyone is expected to be a gentleman, so flexibility is possible with an absence of formal guardrails. It obviously handles capture by bad faith actors fairly poorly; the hope is that such people or movements can be stopped before they get that far. Johnson was pretty marginal as a PM from this point of view.
  - sorokod 3y ago
    Thanks, haven't heard of the 'good chap' theory of governance before. Lovely name that emphasizes how inadequate such system is in the 21st century. Or perhaps it was never adequate: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/37844/has-the-good-chaps-theory-of-government-always-been-a-myth https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/37844/has-the-go...
ben_w 3y ago
> Which _sounds_ bad, but the UK has an extremely long history of relative stability compared to basically anywhere else on the planet, so something must be going right. The more I learn about British history, the more I think this reputation for stability is merely due to how well all the civil wars (and parliament inviting in a new royal family) were brushed over.

pyuser583 3y ago

The idea is once the Crown issues letters patent, it’s the law. In the recent past, legislation was reviewed for constitutionality by a committee in the House of Lords, called Law Lords. In the 2000s, the Law Lords were rebranded as the “UK Supreme Court”. But the idea is still that once the legislative process is done, the result is a law.