“Judges should not feel free to pour their own political values and ideals into the constitution” ( Whittington,2008, p162). Spalding (2008) gave great details about how difficult it was to come to an agreement on a constitution with all of the colonies, in his paper on
''The UK constitution is not fit for purpose'' The bulk of liberal democracies in the world are ones of which have a constitution known as codified. The UK does not have a codified constitution or an entrenched constitution. This puts the UK in a small group of liberal democracies to not have a codified system along side with Israel, Saudi Arabia and New Zealand. Instead the UK has a constitution that contains a variety of written and unwritten sources which lays out the laws, rules and conventions of how the UK is to be governed whilst protecting the rights of the citizens. It is a common question amongst political scientists as to whether the UK constitution is fit for purpose.
‘The rules which allocate and control governmental power in the United Kingdom are so diverse and uncertain that the existence of such a thing as the “constitution of the United Kingdom” must be open to doubt.’ Discuss. This essay will consider the question as to whether the existence of the United Kingdom’s constitution can be said to be ‘in doubt’ as a result of the ‘diverse and uncertain’ nature of the ‘rules that allocate and control governmental power’. It will consider what is meant by the term ‘Constitution’ and how, if at all, the UK’s set of Laws and Conventions resemble this. Following on from this, it will discuss whether or not the existence of the UK’s constitution is clear or whether it is open to doubt as a result of its unwritten nature as well as the spread of powers across various decision making bodies such as devolved Parliaments and Assemblies. What defines a Constitution?
This led to disputes amongst the states that could not be readily settled, as it relied on each state’s court system which invariably chose to discount the ruling of the other states. The Constitution, under article III section I, allowed for a central court system, including one Supreme Court and a system of lower courts. This would alleviate the dissention in the AoC court system and allow for cases to be heard and decided based on a central system of
And, this creates room for worry, he fears they would use their powers to ensure federal supremacy over states. Brutus (1788) asserted that “the judicial power of the united states would lean strongly in favor of the general government and give such an explanation to the constitution, as will favor an extension of its jurisdiction” (p.312). Thus, eventually leading to “the destruction, of that of the respective states” (p.315). Moreover, Brutus (1788) felt that the immeasurable extent of judicial powers creates room for abuse of power especially since “they are to be rendered totally independent, both of the people and the legislature, both with respect to their offices and salaries” (p.
Discuss the view that the UK Constitution has become too flexible (30 marks) The key features of the UK constitution is that it’s uncodified, there’s not a single document stating the rules, its developed from various sources e.g. common law, statutory law, EU Law and relies on tradition as much as nay written documents. The main advantage of this is that it can easily be changed allowing us to evolve E.g. Regional Devolution (Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland). The UK has a unitary constitution, where all power and authority resides in Parliament.
Reasoning that amounts to nothing more than a "tortuous chain of hypothetical transmittals" is insufficient to infer access. . .
This changed the way power was distributed within the government, due to the Constitution. Great Brittain has an unwritten constitution unlike the U.S.A. Instead Britain's laws, policies and codes are developed through statutes, common law, convention and more recently E.U law. This means that the British constitution has no single document, which states principles and rules of a state. The Constitution is one document explaining all of the principles and rules of the government, and how power is separated in the goevernment.
People will argue that times have changed and with that, the Constitution needs to change. However, the Constitution is an immortal document. The writers knew that times would change which is why the Constitution can be interpreted in different ways, but not rewritten or changed. The Constitution can be interpreted to fit the needs of a constantly changing culture and people. Barack Obama has failed to recognize the separation of powers and also fails to treat Congress as an equal branch of government.
In addition to this, the Articles of Confederation also did not address many things that should have been a part of the government system. These include the levy of taxes and the regulation of trade between states and other countries. The Constitution also has a system of checks and balances and allows for ratifications, whereas the Articles of Confederation had neither of