The British Constitution
What is a Constitution?
According to the OED, a constitution is a "the system of laws and basic principles that a state, a country or an organization is governed by" (OED). So it is a body of written down rules that regulate the relation of the state and its individual subject, the rights and responsibilities, plus the state structure (goverment, parliament, courts).
The Uniqueness of the "British Constitution"
Special about the so-called "British Constitution" is that there is no single documents whoch has the word constitution upon it. However, Walter Bagehot already used the term in his famous work The English Constitution. Unlike the German "Bundesgesetz or the "Constitution of the United States of American" (1787)it is the British version is rather made up of several laws and unwritten customsa and a set of various sources from several ages [1,2], e.g.:
- Statutes
- Conventions
- Exercises of the royal prerogative
- The Common law
- European law
- International law
- Treaties
- Authorities and precedents
Today's British political system of parliamentry democracy and constitutional monarchy developed gradually as some kind of "organic" "product of evolution rather than design" (Bagehot) [3,6]. Or as Jack Straw (MP, Lord Chancellor, Secretary of Justice) says: "a product of many centuries of change, some revolutionary but most gradual and evolutionary...", "the British people have developed an innate understanding of the rights which has come from centuries-old tradition – its in our cultural DNA”. A hsitory of around 800 years [3].
Sources
[1]Turpin, Colin and Adam Tompkins. British government and the Constitution. 6th ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007: 5-9, 33-42.
[2]“What Is The British Constitution?” Re-Constitution. 6. July. 2010 <http://www.re-constitution.org.uk/discover-the-facts/what-is-the-british-constitution/>[1]
[3]Straw, Jack. “Modernising the Magna Carta.” 2008. Ministry of Justice. 6.July 2010 <http://www.justice.gov.uk/news/sp130208.htm>[2]
[5]Straw, Jack. “Constitutional change and the future of parliamentary democracy.” 2009. Ministry of Justice. 6.July 2010 <http://www.justice.gov.uk/news/speech241109a.htm>[3]
[6]Bagehot. Walter. Die Englische Verfassung. Ed./Trans. Klaus Streifhau. Berlin: Luchterhand. 1971: 1-38.
[7]Faith, Thompson. Magna Carta. London: Oxford University Press, 1950: V, 3-10, 33,-69.
[8]“Judiciary.” Re-Constitution. 6. July. 2010 <http://www.re-constitution.org.uk/discover-the-facts/judiciary#facts_5>[4]