Should Uk have a written constitution ?

The United Kingdom is along with Israel, the two only democracies in the world that do not have a written constitution. The United Kingdom have an “unwritten” one formed of the acts of parliament, convention and court judgment. Constitutions are the foundation for most of the nations in the world. The world constitution refers to “a set of rules which governs the actions of government ensuring that they are lawful”. Would a written constitution be better for the United Kingdom than the “unwritten” one? To start with, it would be useful to remind the advantage and the gaps of a written constitution for United Kingdom (I), then focus on the arguments against the codification of the Constitution (II).

Chiefly one of the benefits of the current system is its flexibility. If the gouvernement have a political mandate from the people, it can reform the Constitution, we can take the example of the abolition of the majority of hereditary peers in the House of Lords or even the devolution to Scotland made possible by the flexibility of an unwritten constitution.

Nevertheless, an uncodified constitution creates two mains problems. One the hand it makes it difficult to know what the state of the constitution actually is. One the other hand, it suggests that it is easier to make changes to the United Kingdom Constitution than in countries with written constitutions.

Above all the parliament of the United Kingdom is supreme and sovereign which means that no person or body is recognised by the law of England as having a right to override or set aside the legislation of Parliament, however a written Constitution will skip the power of the Parliament Sovereignty.

Furthermore, not having a written Constitution provides, again, the flexibility that it can not be followed by the government when there is a need in doing so and no legal consequences for this, we can take for example a bill published on September by the Government partially revising its commitments made in the context of Brexit.

Everything leads us to believe that the United Kingdom is not inclined for a written Constitution and has survived very well until now without one. The real question will be that the British Constitution is often referred to as “unwritten”, but is it really an accurate description?

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