(c) Assess the arguments in favour of introducing a codified constitution for the UK. (25 marks) Draft A constitution is a statement of how the political system works and contains the limits to government power and the rights of the citizens. Britain does not have a real constitution but we do have an unwritten, uncodified constitution. There are many arguments for having a codified constitution for Britain. The first one is that our rights are not well enough protected.
When the Labour government implemented these laws they protected traditional parliamentary sovereignty. Unlike Germany or the USA where judges can annul legislations that are found to be in breach of the human rights act. In the UK however judges can only issue a declaration of incompatibility which sends the legislation back to parliament so that they can make changes to suit the HRA. It is difficult to declare on this subject whether or not there have been enough reforms on the Human Rights Act as through one viewpoint it is important to sometimes evade Human Rights to catch potential terrorists on the other hand millions of people have had to sacrifice their right to private life as has been found with the major scandal of NSA spying on internet records. Some people may argue that if you have nothing to hide you should not fear however people still should be able to have
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.
Firstly, a codified constitution would clarify the nature of the political system to citizens of the state. Most British citizens do not understand the concept of the constitution, nor what the UK constitution entails. It is therefore an argument that having a codified constitution would raise public awareness and support for the government would grow. It would also enable the public and people in government to view the constitution whenever necessary for matters such as court cases, etc. This would encourage public involvement in politics and act as an improvement to our democratic society.
They can do so if they really wanted to through a procedure called Constitutional Convention. This would be a very long and slow process and require a lot of votes to do so. However someone on a blog had said "The government cannot rewrite the Constitution, but they can amend it and take said amendments away at any time. Our Bill of Rights cannot be infringed. They cannot take them away.
Assignment 2 legal and humanitarian rights Legal rights- legal rights are the rights that each person has depending on which society they live in. In spite of the fact that the Universal Decoration of Human Rights (UDHR) supplies an as perfect list of rights, it’s not the law and many of the nations do not follow it. Here is a recent immigration act in the BBC News. The government has published its Immigration Bill, which will change the rules on access to the NHS and impose tougher penalties for illegal working. But what legislation has been passed over the last century or so?
The British Constitution Briefly explain the term flexible as used in the extract Flexible means that the constitution can be amended easily and quickly as unlike a rigid constitution such as the one in the US, there is no lengthy procedure for change that has to be followed. A flexible constitution it can be altered via the law-making process, by a simple majority in the legislature as no laws are regarded as fundamental. “There is no convincing case for a written/codified constitution in Britain” Discuss To a certain extent there is no convincing case for a codified constitution in Britain. The main reason against a codified constitution in Britain is because a codified constitution would totally undermine the sovereignty of Parliament, the idea that Parliament can legislate as it chooses and that there can be no superior authority to Parliament. Moreover, no such document could be entrenched whilst Parliament retains the power to alter it at will.
A codified constitution is too inflexible and cannot adapt to the changing political circumstance, such as society changing. An uncodified constitution is much more flexible for when archaic laws need to be replaced with something more adept to modern society. This also means that codified constitutions may fossilise the political systems as that system may have originated many years go and not be practical in this time, whereas uncodified constitutions are able to evolve over time, and thus embody the climate of the day. This can be shown from the US constitution which has had only 26 amendments since 1787, this shows the difficulty of changing an entrenched written constitution. Countries with codified constitutions have a legislative process that can seem complicated, lengthy and also ineffective.
University of London Common Law Reasoning and Institutions Essay Title: Human Rights Act 1998 Candidate #:L1458 Student Registration #:101006174 Q. 'The HRA 1998 has had a little impact upon protecting the basic liberties of British subjects and could be repealed without any consequence'. Discuss. The UK does not have a written constitution as part of its national law. People there had long enjoyed a strong tradition of individual liberties but it has not always been easy to say precisely what to do when unwritten liberties conflict with other laws.
Arguments against adopting a codified constitution such as that it could lead to judicial tyranny are outweighed by arguments for it. However although a codified constitution may not beneficial a bill of rights would be as it would offer the protection of citizens rights, but could be written so that it wouldn’t become outdated. BODY – Codified and uncodified constitutions: A country’s constitution is often defined as being either codified or uncodified which can be said simply as written or unwritten (although no constitution is fully unwritten or written so this is not an all encompassing definition). Codified constitutions have three key features, chiefly that the document is authoritative, in that it is the highest law of the land and binds all political institutions. Another key characteristic is that it is entrenched as it is difficult to amend or abolish; there have been 27 amendments to the US constitution in over 200 years (mainly because it is extremely difficult to get both houses and the majority of states to agree on a bill).This type of constitution could therefore be described as being rigid.