However the European parliament can have a negative effect on a country as for them to change legislation they have to speak to other members of the government so if a law does go through and they do not agree with it, it may still go through as a law and they won’t be able to do anything about it. Parliament (Central Government, House of Commons and House of Lords) There are 3 types of parliament there are central government, House of Commons and House of Lords they all have different roles and responsibilities. Central government- Central government is the government of a nation-state. This is the same thing as a federal government which may mean they have some type of power at a certain level which would then be argued about
(Cranny p.55) Normally, when Britain went to war, Canada would automatically be at war as well, but King took a big step in not following orders from the mother country. Another accomplishment King succeeded in was demanding to be able to sign an international treaty without a British representative’s permission. (Cranny p.55) Once again, King did not follow the rules. He was supposed to receive a British representative’s signature for treaties, but he continued to push for greater Canadian independence. Secondly, The Balfour Report allowed Canada to receive autonomy and gave Canada equal status with Britain for creating laws.
Given that there is already some form of protection it would be fair to argue that the UK doesn’t currently need a constitution as there is and hasn’t been any real threat towards people’s rights. An argument against a codified constitution is that the lack of constitutional constraints allows executive government to be strong and decisive. After the 7/7 bombings in London the un-codified constitution meant that the government could act quickly and effectively and change the anti terrorism laws meaning they could hold suspects for 28 days, an increase of 14 days. With a codified constitution this would be have been harder as
There are further features of a Liberal Democracy which need to be held by the UK for it too fall into the category; Elected representatives and the government should be held to account by the people, something which is true within the UK as members of parliament are held accountable to the people, if they don’t do what they promise the people will not re-elect them, they are also held to account by legislature. Civil liberties must also be protected, this is done in the UK under the Human rights act, as well as the Human rights covered by the European Convention in 1953. There is some debate here as
Firstly on of the fundamental features of democracy is that it establishes and protects freedom. Democracy should ensure that no government can threaten freedom unless it is with the expressed consent of the people. This is certainly true of the United Kingdom as the European Commission of Human Rights Parliament remains sovereign. Also the UK signed up to the Social Chapter of the European Union which guarantees a variety of employment and other economic rights. However, Parliament is sovereign and civil rights and liberties have been put suspended but only in the interests of law and order or national security.
There many arguments for and against Britain having a codified constitution but one could say that they are too rigid for such a time of social change. Firstly, a codified constitution is limited government and would cut the government down to size. A codified would effectively end the principle of parliamentary sovereignty and subsequently elective dictatorship. Both of which were shown in Blair and Thatcher’s Governments. It would also prevent the government to interfere with the constitution unfairly, as it would be protected by the existence of the higher law and the ‘supermajority’.
The principle was adopted by the Founding Fathers due to their fear of totalitarianism. Montesquieu argued for separation of powers in his book L’Esprit de Lois, where he stated that separation of powers will avoid tyranny ‘When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person…there can be no liberty.’ On the contrary to the US, the UK’s powers are fused; the Prime Minister is both the executive and part of the legislature. In the US system there is also a separation of personnel, this means that no person can be a member of more than one branch at the same time. When Senator Al Gore was elected vice-president in 1992, he had to resign from the Senate. Similarly, in 2008, Barack Obama too had to resign from the Senate.
Article III of the US Constitution establishes the judiciary branch - the Supreme Court. Although the US Constitution includes democratic principles such as checks and balances and the separation of powers to ensure the equal balance of power amongst the government branches, the legislative branch was designed to be most powerful. The organization and qualifications of Congress also contribute to the democratic shortcomings of the US Constitution. One of the biggest of these government decisions is electing the president, for which the system of the electoral college is in place. The US Constitution did not abolish slavery, and an interesting guarantee regarding slavery was included in Article IV of the Constitution.
However on the other hand a separation of powers undermines the idea of political sovereignty, because even though they have gain legitimate power, they are not able to run the country as they wish in terms of financial and economic policies. Flexibility is big problem also as an uncodified constitution allows the government to change the constitution and allows them to amend it to suit the needs of the party instead of the party in office working within the framework of the constitution, this can lead to a dictatorship also and pretty much removes the importance of a constitution, as it does not limit the government, whereas a codified constitution would most likely entrench these laws, meaning they would only be changed in an extraordinary circumstance . Regardless of this it could be argued that due to the ever evolving philosophy, it
As you can see, everyone has their own thoughts and speculations on this decree. But before forming your own opinion on this policy, we must first take a look at the history of isolationism, and the impact it had on certain countries around the world. The United States policy for isolationism, or non-interventionism, was maintained throughout most of the nineteenth century. George Washington laid the foundation for non-interventionism in his Farewell Address saying, "The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation.