Public law - Does the UK have a constitution? revision notes (semester 1)
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Course
Public Law (LAW106)
Institution
The University Of Liverpool (UoL)
Document containing all the relevant information about the topic, condensed into colour coded tables to enable easier memorisation and order. I achieved a first class in public law using these notes.
UK constitution – does the UK have a constitution?
DOES THE UK HAVE A CONSTITUTION???
DOES THE UK HAVE A The vast majority of states have a ‘written’ or ‘codified’
CONSTITUTION??? constitution, but the UK does NOT
Question is does the UK have no constitution???
ARGUMENT FOR NO Ridley describes the argument for the UK having no
CONSTITUTION constitution in this way
‘The emperor has no clothes after all, that the
constitutional attire his courtiers claim to see his
empty words’
This means that people argue there is a constitution but
there isn’t one in a codified form like other countries so
maybe there isn’t one at all
Some people still argue there is no UK constitution event
today
Bogdanor said ‘commentators on the constitution
must have an easy life since we have no
constitution’
PROBLEMS WITH THIS Ridley discussed how the absence of constitution has
problematic issues such as being unable to protect the
democracy as there is no codified constitutional limits on
power
Bogdanor explains how Brexit ‘revealed the nakedness of
our unprotected constitution’ which impeded the process
of ‘completing our constitutional development’
EARLIER UNDERSTANDING Bolingbroke’s definition:
OF A CONSTITUTION (i) a set of laws, institutions & customs
(ii) based on principles of reason
(iii) aimed at the public good – do things to benefit the
collective
(iv) making a general system
(v) under which the community agrees to be governed –
consent and agreement of the people that are subject to
these rules
This view is also refelected in official documents such as
the Cabinet Manuel (2011) which says:
there is ‘no single document that describes…or
regulates the structures of the state’
it says that instead ‘the constitutional order has
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