Outline Although the founding of the Constitution was a revolutionary, positive turning-point in American history, the US Constitution has a few unconstitutional and democratic shortcomings. Introduction In order to understand the shortcomings of democracy of the US Constitution, is it is important to know the background of its’ founding and how each article serves our country. Federalist No. 10, written by James Madison, asserts the importance of having the image of a democracy without its real substance. There seems to have been a very strong opposition towards democracy at the Constitutional Convention, although the framers were in the midst of creating democratic principles to appeal to the majority of the country.
Along with the rising number of back-bench rebellions and MPs defeating government’s proposals such as the Syria war in 2011, it can be seen that Parliament is performing well in making laws. However, although it has enormous power, Parliament is oftenly not expected to demonstrate that since by convention, government with the majority dominates and Parliament should support it. The whips system-a weekly outline sent to MPs with items underlined by 1,2 or 3 lines depending on how important the MPs attendance is- maintains party discipline and makes sure that rebellions are exceptional. Usually, MPs obey this system, therefore, Parliament in reality has not fulfilled this function. Parliament is believed to
The United Kingdom’s s uncodified constitution relies heavily on established conventions and trust in order to prevent widespread corruption. To some extent this type of constitution historically has served the UK well. However, due to increasing disillusion with politicians and their ethics. Which some claim to be the result of more transparency and a higher level of education. UK citizen are more informed and able to make analytical judgements in their best interest, this in turn, challenges the authority of the state to decide what is in our best interest.
As your freedom of speech can be heavily hampered if you do not operate within the law; or you are voicing racist or offensive opinions, or your speech is threatening to “breach the peace” this is too say, what you are saying could be grossly offensive to some groups or individuals. The United Kingdom is definitely a democracy though (referring back to the definition) as in the UK we have free and fair (and regular) elections, and there are always 2 or more (3 main) parties to vote for. This prevents the UK from moving from a democracy into a dictatorship, as there are always other options to give your vote. The democracy also calls for competitive elections in which every adult is allowed to vote. 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.
This essay plans to illustrate the pros and cons of a codified constitution and answers the original question; should Britain adopt a codified constitution? The main argument against a written constitution is that Britain has survived very well without one and that the strength of an unwritten constitution is its ability to evolve according to circumstances because it is not set in stone. The Conservatives would say that “if it aint broke, don’t fix it” As well as being flexible, the current system also has a number of informal checks and balances built into it, mostly based on convention, so that there is a degree of balance between the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government, which suggests a written constitution would be unnecessary. An example might be the
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
However, we might ask, what democracy does the modern society often fight for? Are there any critics on this kind of system of government? Can democracy be defended against these arguments? In modern sense, democracy can be defined as “a system of governance in which rulers are held accountable for their actions in the public realm by citizens, acting indirectly through the competition and cooperation of their elected representatives.” (Schmitter and Karl 1991, 76) It is also “a mode of decision-making about collectively binding rules and policies over which the people exercise control” (Beetham 1993: 55). In other words, democracy requires political equality that the people have equal political influence which can be actualized through universal suffrage under the principle of ‘one person, one vote’.
Another factor keeping the probability of this bill being passed minimal is the Republican Party’s control over the United States House of Representatives and that this bill is not one of the Republican Party’s priorities at the moment. On top of this dilemma, Congress is currently dealing with some other important issues such as budgets and fiscal problems. Also, the Democratic Party was the majority party from 2009 to 2010, and even then, they could not pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. This makes it highly unlikely for the act to pass now, even including the fact that Obama administration supports it. This is considered to be a broken promise, given the current reality in
Another Major flaw was that “the country, whose president, Woodrow Wilson, had dreamt up the idea of the League - America -, refused to join it.” The league’s most powerful militaries Britain and France not only suffered casualties, but also economically as they were greatly in debt to the United States. Because of this neither country was enthusiastic to get involved in disputes that did not affect Western Europe. Therefore the League had no military might and could only enforce economic sanctions in hope that they worked against aggressive nations. All these flaws point to signs that the League of Nations was a failure. However, even though there were a few setbacks, the league was a success in many ways.
Anti-Federalist felt that the Constitution gave more power to central government and less to the states. They also argued that the constitution would become too weak because the central government wouldn’t be able to run all states as a result of being too distant and removed from interest of common citizens and farmers. They feared that the Federalists' new government would be too similar to the harsh regimes of Europe which held great power and thus repressed the people. Anti-Feds were extremely scared of a strong central government and the fact that under the new Constitution, the federal government was more powerful than individual states. Another argument was that the states could not print money