''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.
I believe the Constitution did a better job of protecting liberties, specifically in the areas of the federal court system, representation of the people, and the levy of taxes. Alexander Hamilton, statesman and economist, proclaimed "Laws are a dead letter without courts to expound and define their true meaning and operation”. The Articles of Confederation which gave rise to the Confederation government that took effect in March 1781, did not give the national government any means to enforce the federal laws. The states could, and often did, choose to interpret or enforce federal laws in any manner they saw fit. 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.
According to the principle of parliamentary sovereignty, Parliament is the only body that can make law for the UK. No other body can overrule or change the laws which Parliament has made. The principle of parliamentary sovereignty however cannot be found in statute law, it is part of another source of the constitution, common law. The reason it is not part of statute law is that Parliament can pass, change, or repeal any law it likes and is not bound by laws of previous Parliaments. Therefore if parliamentary sovereignty was an Act of Parliament it would be possible for Parliament to repeal it and destroy the principle.
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.
This then allows the parliament to change or repeal any law it wants and is also not bounded by the laws made by the previous parliaments. Parliamentary sovereignty is made up of Mass electorate, Party system, referendums, pressure groups, international agreements and treaties, the European Union (EU), the European Conventions on Human Rights (ECHR). One factor that argues that the parliamentary sovereignty in the UK have been devolved, this argument comes from the fact
1. Essay Read the following quotation: The constitution is work of many interpretations. The legal system have their interpretation, and so does scholars and the general public. However, the true meaning of the Constitution seems to get lost in the mix of other people’s understanding of it, “The emphasis on historical and theoretical precision sometimes leads us to forget that the Constitution was the work of statesmen and politicians, not philosophers and theorists." (Ivers.
He argued that they lack the power to act so they are weak. According to Hamilton (1788), they possess “merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments” (p.256). Hamilton (1788) pointed out that the court may sometimes be biased but, “the general liberty of the people can never be endangered from that quarter” (p. 256). In respect to the interpretation of the law, Hamilton (1788) believed that the constitution is “a fundamental law…” (p.257) and, “if there be an irreconcilable variance between the two, the constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the people to the intention of their agents” (p.257). He is indirectly saying; court’s rulings give back power to the people.
The act was created to protect children and Templeman regarded the arguments on the words ‘is suffering’ as a distraction from the aim. ‘This is an example of judicial practicality and desire to see justice down’ . This case illustrates that the ‘rules’ of statutory interpretation do not have to be followed exactly and are merely guidelines. Lord Templeman states that the rules of interpretation have ‘an aura of scientific authenticity about them when the reality is that interpreting any document is more of an art than a science’ . In other words, the rules can only be guidelines because judges will clearly have different interpretations.
Is what Socrates says in Crito about the obligation to obey the laws inconsistent with what he says in Apology? In Crito, Socrates’ view of one’s obligation to obey the state-mandated law was profoundly inconsistent against the view he fervently expressed in his defense in Apology, in which he argued that divine law is inherently superior to the law created by men. These two opposing interpretations are problematic and largely contradicting and therefore could not be reconciled given by the strong objections he presented in Apology and throughout his defense and the necessity to obey the city laws in Crito. This paper would elucidate his inconsistent views in Crito and Apology and argue in which law should he follow given his stance on what’s constitute piety and harm. “Men of Athens, I am grateful and I am your friend, but I will obey the god rather than you, and as long as I draw breath, I shall not cease to practice philosophy (Apology, 29d).” He made an emphatic hierarchical distinction between these two laws in which he argued that divine law should dictate one’s moral compass and must take precedence over the laws mandated by men.
This is true, but to interpret the laws and judge their constitution are the two special functions of the court. The fact that the courts are charged with determining what the law means does not suggest that they will be justified in substituting their will for that of