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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 Const

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.”

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.”