THE CONSTITUTIONAL SYSTEM OF THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND: A COMPARATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL LAW STUDY — HISTORY, SOURCES AND INSTITUTIONS OF AN UNCODIFIED CONSTITUTION
Keywords:
United Kingdom, uncodified constitution, common law, rule of law, parliamentary sovereignty, BrexitAbstract
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is distinguished by an uncodified constitution, built up over centuries from union treaties, foundational pacts (Magna Carta, the Petition of Right, the Habeas Corpus Act, the Bill of Rights, the Act of Settlement), ordinary statutes, the common law and constitutional conventions. This study traces the historical formation of the British state and the means by which collective memory, rather than any constituent power, allows constitutional norms to be identified. It then examines the sources of constitutional law — supranational and domestic — before analysing the system’s guiding principles: empiricist rationalism, the rule of law as theorised by Dicey, and parliamentary sovereignty, whose practical scope is considerably tempered by Cabinet dominance. The study goes on to present the institutions of the state — the Crown, the bicameral Parliament, the Government and the Prime Minister — together with the uncodified protection of fundamental rights, before turning to the contemporary trials posed by Brexit and successive crises of institutional trust. What emerges is a flexible and resilient system, yet one whose lack of a single text sustains an enduring tension between the tradition of convention and the periodically renewed demand for more explicit written rules.
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