The Constitutional Reform Act was intended to represent a separation from the traditional “fusion” model of the UK Constitution and towards a “more explicit separation of powers”, The Relations between the executive and judiciary would therefore be governed by the Act itself. Traditionally, the judiciary’s overall task was administration. However, it has developed which entailed a minority of the judiciary having political importance. One of the most significant developments which have been made is the introduction of the Human Rights Act which came into force in 2000. It also incorporated The European Convention on Human Rights into UK law.
Yet the process does have a significant impact on UK politics. It seems the UK has increased control and awareness over foreign policy but the sovereignty over domestic policy has diminished. The governments totally support globalisation yet figures (from 2003) show that the UK has dropped three places in the index of the world’s globalised
Also, the Wright report, which includes provisions towards electing members of select committee chairs by secret ballot, and to end the Winterton rule on public bill committees is still stuck within the legislative process. Therefore, there is much that can be done towards constitutional reform. However, the modernisation process has done much in recent years. This can be illustrated by the separation of powers by creating the Supreme Court. The removal of the 12 law lords to become Supreme Court justices means that the House of Lords are no longer the highest court of appeal.
Since 1997 there have been many constitutional reforms from the Labour Government to the recent coalition government, these reforms have changed the UK political system quite dramatically; these reforms may have increased our democracy but have also created new problems which have to resolved through Parliamentary debate. The main Constitutional reform which has been ongoing through the Labour and Coalition government, however the Coalition seem less keen, is the reform on devolution of Powers to Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland. Scotland and Northern Ireland were granted with Primary powers of legislation meaning they can create legislation on a variety of different matters such as Health and Social services and Law and Order, this gave Scotland and Northern Ireland much more independence and power to run their own nations, Wales was only granted secondary powers meaning they can alter legislation but not create. This devolution was in response to referendums held in the Scotland, Wales and NI and there have also been calls to have complete independence from the UK however the referendum held on this matter returned a NO vote. This devolution however has raised some issues which seem hard to solve for example the West Lothian Question creates a problem n which Scottish MP’s can vote on English Laws but English MP’s cannot vote on Scottish Laws.
Outline the Key Elements and Critically Assess the Draft Reform Treaty (Constitutional Treaty) of the European Union. As the twenty-first century dawned it became evident to some of the European Union leaders that the European Union was in need of a major review. The final declaration of the Treaty of Nice in 2001 highlighted the need for a deeper and wider debate about the future of Europe. The Laeken declaration 2001 established a convention of the future of Europe to “Improve democracy, transparency and efficiency and to prepare a constitution for the European citizens.” This convention which was held from February 2002 and June 2003 produced a proposal for the ‘Constitutional Treaty for Europe’. In October 2003 an Intergovernmental Conference began the task of approving this draft proposal, however by December an agreement could not be reached.
These laws reflect political developments both within and outside the UK. They include: - The devolution of power to bodies like the Scottish Parliament and Welsh assembly -The Human Rights Act 1998. -The UK's entry to the European Union in 1972. -The Factortame Case The concept of parliamentary sovereignty in the United Kingdom has long been debated. Since the subordination of the monarchy under parliament and the increasingly democratic methods of parliamentary government, there has been the question of whether parliament holds a supreme ability to legislate and whether it should or should not.
* The extent to which the UK has a unitary system of government is debatable following Britain’s membership of the EU and devolution within the UK. * Constitutional reform is debated in both the US and the UK. However, the debate is often in different areas. * In the US, constitutional reform usually comes of calls for further amendments to the Constitution. These have included proposals to balance the federal budget, ban flag desecration, permit prayers in state-run schools and preserve the traditional concept of marriage.
Wright Mills used his workings to show what is wrong with society in so many words. “It was a wonderful coincidence that the meetings of the American Political Science Association for 2006 reconsidered the concept of power on the 50th anniversary of C. Wright Mills’s The Power Elite (1956), a book that can be seen as a challenge to everything that political science has had to say about the structure and distribution of power in the United States before and since its publication. Along with Floyd Hunter’s Community Power Structure (1953), which challenged the discipline at the local level as much as Mill’s book did at the national level, The Power Elite created the field of power structure research within sociology and political science. It is the 50 years of research findings from this new field that will be the main focus of this indictment of mainstream American political science for its failure to realize the fact that power is far more concentrated and class-based in the United States than any of its theories acknowledge (Domhoff, G. William March 2007 p. 97-114).” C. Wright Mills was incredibly important in influencing people about thinking democratically and was huge in helping the middle class. Both which were necessary at the time and were crucial for growth of society and changes that were overdue at this
The European Union famously know as the EU which consists of 28 member nations. However, in the the 1999 a group called Eurozone consisting of 17 nations was formed by this they aimed to achieve foreign and security policy through which the European union has developed a itself in playing a role for external relations and defence. In the mid 1992, the Eu(european union) signed a treaty called Maastricht Treaty, under this they pledged to limit their debt levels and deficit spending .But, in the early 2000s, a number of EU member states were failing to stay within the limits of the Maastricht criteria and turned to securitising of the future government revenues to reduce their debts or deficits.This allowed the sovereigns to mask their debt and deficit levels through a various techniques including, accounting inconsistently, transactions by off-balance-sheet as well as the use of complex currency and credit derivatives structures.The European sovereign debt crisis (often referred to as the Eurozone crisis) is an ongoing financial crisis that has made it difficult for different countries in the European areas to repay or re-finance their government debts without any help of the third parties.This crisis did not only bring adverse economic effects for the countries that are affected, but it has also a huge political impact on the governments which are presently ruling in 8 out of 17 eurozone countries, leading to shift of power in Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Slovenia, Slovakia, and the Netherlands. Apart from political measures and bailout programme which are being implemented to weaken the Eurozone financial crisis, the European Central Bank (ECB) is also doing its part by lowering interest rates and providing cheap loans of more than one trillion Euro to maintain money flows between European banks. On 6 September 2012, the ECB also brought rest to
Below is a list of the topics to be covered in Assignment 1. This sheet is to be used as a tick sheet to assist you in writing your assignment. • Local Government, * National Government, * European Union * Regional Government In your presentation include the following institutions; • Monarchy - this is the oldest form of a government, the king or queen it the head of this government and has the right to make and pass down legislation resides with an elected Parliament but now they do not have an important role within the monarchy, he or she continues to play an important part in the life of the nation. The Monarch takes roles which have continuously changed over one thousand years. The Monarch has a minor role as