British Constitution

Discussion or essay

Is there anything problematic about the format of the British constitution?

Unlike most modern states, Britain does not have a codified constitution but an unwritten one formed of Acts of Parliament, court judgments and conventions. In order to answer the question: “Is there anything problematic about the format of the British Constitution?”, I will analyse the debate about the British Constitution and examine, in a first place, the arguments for, and then, the arguments against its format.

Some people believe that an unwritten constitution is always the best type of constitution in times of emergency because it can be easily amended. Currently, it is practiced in most of the homogeneous states in the world. In fact, there are numerous advantages of an unwritten constitution. On one hand, it is flexible and easy to amend it, it can easily be adapted to meet the changing social, economic and political development of the country since it is based on the principles of justice, fairness and equality, and it grows with people in the sense that it accompanies the evolution of customs, traditions, mindsets of the society. This is why nations like Canada, Israel etc, still have an unwritten constitution to today. Furthermore, it is true that a codified constitution would make the rules clearer. However, the adoption of a codified constitution might affect the democratic rule in the UK and might also lead to judicial tyranny. The reason is that judges would be the ones policing the constitution and the its interpretation can be affected by the personal preference and values of judges. They are not elected and not socially representative of society which could diminish the idea of democratic rule in the UK as they are taking power away from elected representatives in the House of commons. 

Another way of seeing things, is that an unwritten constitution is not suitable for the stability of our society. First of all, this form of constitution is usually unclear and uncertain since the rules and regulations guiding the state are not contained in one single document. There is always uncertainty as to what the law actually is. The ambiguity of its provisions makes it harder for citizens to understand them which may encourage the violation of the rights of citizens. Since people aren’t enlightened or educated about these, the unconstitutionality of an act becomes uneasy to establish. A tragic consequence could even be the rise of dictatorship since it’s easy to manipulate and exploit these unwritten provisions. The law becomes what the judiciary says it is even if it’s sometimes not based on legal principle or statute. In another words, it leaves the political system open to abuse. In the UK system, there are few checks on the power of a government with a majority in the House of Commons, which could alter the rules for its own advantage. In theory, a powerful government could abolish the devolved legislatures and repeal the Human Rights Act. Besides, as I said before, this form of constitution relies on many practices or conventions, that are not necessarily legal rules. Hence, it cannot sustain a federal government system because a federal government structure requires a clear decision of powers and duties between or among the different tires of government.

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