Constitution of the United Kingdom
- Relating to monarchy
- The Sovereign shall grant the Royal Assent to all Bills passed by Parliament (the Royal Assent was last refused by Queen Anne in 1708, for the Scottish Militia Bill 1708, on the advice of her ministers).[13]
- The monarch will not dissolve Parliament without the advice of the Prime Minister.
- The monarch will ask the leader of the dominant party in the House of Commons to form a government, and if there is no dominant party, the leader most likely to be able to form a government.
- The monarch will ask a member of the House of Commons (rather than the House of Lords or someone outside Parliament) to form a government. It remains possible, however, for a caretaker Prime Minister to be drawn from the House of Lords.
- All ministers are to be drawn from the House of Commons or the House of Lords.
- The House of Lords will accept any legislation that was in the Government's manifesto (the 'Salisbury Convention') – in recent years this convention has been broken by the Lords, though the composition of the Lords (which was the justification for the convention) has radically changed since the convention was introduced.
- Individual Ministerial Responsibility
- Collective Ministerial Responsibility
[
Recent constitutional reform
The Labour government under Prime Minister Tony Blair instituted sweeping constitutional reforms in the late 1990s and early-to-mid 2000s. The effective incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law through the Human Rights Act 1998 has granted citizens specific positive rights and given the judiciary some power to enforce them. The courts can put pressure on Parliament to amend primary legislation that conflicts with the Act by means of "Declarations of Incompatibility" - however only of an advisory capacity as Parliament is not bound to amend the law nor can the judiciary avoid any statue - and can refuse to enforce, or "strike down", any incompatible secondary legislation. Any actions of government authorities that violate Convention rights are illegal except if mandated by an Act of Parliament.
Recent reforms have also decentralised the UK by setting up a devolved parliament in Scotland and assemblies in Wales and Northern Ireland. The UK had previously been an essentially unitary state since its foundation in 1801, though Scotland had always had a separate legal system and Ireland had repeatedly been subject to attempts to devolve power from London. Some commentators have stated the UK is now a "quasi-federal" state: it is only "quasi" federal, because (unlike the other components of the UK) England has no legislature of its own, and is directly ruled from Westminster. Attempts to extend devolution to the various regions of England have stalled, and the fact that Parliament functions both as a British and as an English legislature has created some dissatisfaction (see, for example, the article on the "West Lothian question").
These reforms have undermined the concept of Parliamentary sovereignty somewhat, even though Parliament could still abolish the devolved assemblies and repeal the Human Rights Act. In reality such action is unlikely so these restrictions on the legislative power of Parliament are likely to remain on the statute book for the time being.
The passing of an unprecedented Freedom of Information Act has challenged the traditional British notion that governments should not disclose too many details of their operations.
Recent changes also include the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 which alters the structure of the House of Lords to separate its judicial and legislative functions. For example the legislative, judicial and executive functions of the Lord Chancellor are now shared between the Lord Chancellor (executive), Lord Chief Justice (judicial) and the newly created post of Lord Speaker (legislative). The presence of Law Lords (members of the judiciary) in the House of Lords, will be removed by moving the Lords to the new Supreme Court of the United Kingdom by 2009.
[
See also
- Commonwealth of Britain Bill
- Constitutional government
- Category:English constitutionalists
- History of the British constitution
- History of democracy
- Royal Commission on the Constitution (United Kingdom)
- Treaty establishing a constitution for Europe
[
References
- ^ Barnett, H, Constitutional and Administrative Law, ed5 (2005, London: Cavendish) at 9. Conversly, "A written constitution is one contained within a single document or a [finite] series of documents, with or without amendments", id.
- ^ see, Van Gend en Loos case, Costa v. ENEL in EU law and the Factortame litigation in the House of Lords
- ^ For a critical perspective on these attitudes, see Prof. Conor Gearty's 2007 lecture "Are judges now out of their depth?".
- ^ See Prof. Jeffrey Goldsworthy's study The Sovereignty of Parliament, OUP 1999.
- ^ See in particular Jackson and others v Attorney General [2005] UKHL 56 http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldjudgmt/jd051013/jack-1.htm
- ^ Bradley and Ewing, p.24
- ^ Thoburn v Sunderland City Council [2002 EWHC 195 (Admin), [2003] QB 151 ("Metric Martyrs" ruling) 18 Feb 2002 (Extract)]
- ^ "Elective dictatorship" (21 October 1976). The Listener: 496-500.
- ^ a b Barendt, Eric, Is there a United Kingdom Constitution, 1997, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies (vol. 137)
- ^ The Independent - 14 Feb 2008 - Why doesn't the UK have a written constitution, and does it matter?
- ^ The Cornish Stannary Parliament and the unwritten British Constitution
- ^ Abbott, Lewis F. British Democracy: Its Restoration & Extension, Industrial Systems Research Publications, Manchester (UK), 2006. ISBN 978-0-906321-31-7. Page 4.[1]
- ^ Smith, David L. "Change & Continuity in 17th Century English Parliaments". History Review, 2002. p. 1.
[
External links
- The British Constitution A general introduction to the principles underlying the UK Constitution
[
Further reading
- Bradley, A.W. and Ewing, K.D., Constitutional and Administrative Law (Pearson, 2003), ISBN 0-582-43807-1
- Report on the British constitution and proposed European constitution by Professor John McEldowney, University of Warwick Submitted as written evidence to the House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution, published to the public on 15 October 2003.
- From Unwritten to Written: Transformation in the British Common-Law Constitution, David Jenkins, 2003
|
|||||||||||||||||
For more information review our copyright contact and privacy policy.