Constitution

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 561.

The Constitution of the United Kingdom is the uncodified body of law and convention under which the United Kingdom is governed.

Because the UK has no single codified documentary constitution, it is often said that the country has an "unwritten constitution" or “uncodified”. However, most of the constitution does exist in the written form of statutes, court judgments and treaties.

Britain's constitution - The key features (or principals):

Ø parliamentary supremacy and the rule of law

Parliament is the supreme law-making body: its Acts are the highest source of British law. The latter is the idea that all laws and government actions conform to certain fundamental and unchanging principles. One of these fundamental principles is of equal application of the law: everyone is equal before the law, including those in power.

Ø unitary state

The Uk is a unitary state rather than a federation or a confederation. The authority of local and devolved bodies like the Scottish Parliament is dependent on Acts of Parliament, and they can in principle be abolished at the will of the British Parliament in Westminster.

Ø Constitutional monarchy

another key principle, summed up in the maxim that "the Queen reigns, but she does not rule" and the often-quoted saying that the monarch acts only on the advice of his or her ministers.

Ø Government fused with parliament

The British constitution is parliamentary in character, and the executive ("Her Majesty's Government") is drawn from the legislature, Parliament. The doctrine of separation of powers is not as prominent in the British constitution as it is elsewhere.

Since the Government is "fused" with Parliament, and virtually every government has a majority, there is no formal restraint on the legislative power of the executive.