The Constitution

• The Constitution

  • Parliamentary Sovereignty
  • Rule of Law
  • Unitary State
  • Parliamentary Gov under a Constitutional Monarch
• Parliamentary Sovereignty

  • States that Westminster parliament is the supreme law making body
  • Parliament can legislate on any object
  • Can't be overturned by an higher authority
  • No parliament can bind it's successors
  • Parliament can make,repeal or amend any legislation
• Example

  • The European communities Act 1972 allowed the UK to join the EEC
  • And allowed regulations to take over national laws
  • But in 2016, a referendum was held and a parliament Act made us leave the EU
• Fusion of Powers

  • Executive and legislative branch of gov intermingle
  • E.g. Rishi Sunak is an MP for the legislative branch and the executive branch (PM)
  • Parliament can be seen as a recruiting ground for the executive
• Unitary

  • Another way of diving constitutions is how they deal with power
  • Do they centralise or devolve it
  • Traditional view of the British constitution is that it's unitary despite there being 4 nations
  • Power is centralised in the Westminster parliament
• In a Unitary Constitution

  • Subnational institutions don't have power
  • Regional governments may be weak
  • Local gov have little power
• In a federal constitution

  • Opposite of a unitary state
  • Power is shared to the subnational and regional gov
  • Federal gov can't remove power from state gov
• Union constitution

  • Mix of political and cultural differences
  • This is like the UK with multiple parliaments like the Scottish parliament - politics
  • Also the Welsh language - cultural
• Flexibility

  • The British constitution is the type that can be easily changed without a lengthy process
  • E.g. the right to bear arms in America is part of the US constitution so it'd be difficult to remove
  • However in the UK after the dunblane massacre we changed the law about guns immediately
• Rule of law

  • Everyone should be entitled to equal law, entitlement to trial and they shouldn't be imprisoned without a legal process
  • Parliament in theory can abolish legislation
• Parliamentary gov under a Constitutional Monarch

  • We have a constitutional monarch, where the gov takes place through parliament so the gov is accountable to parliament