British Constitution

This work seeks to examine both the contemporary evidence and historiography of the controversial relationship between King George III and his advisor, mentor, and Favourite, John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute. It finds that the so-called 'Whig' and 'Tory' narratives often tell us more about the historians themselves than the period they claim to have been examining. It becomes clear that legitimate constitutional concerns were raised in the early years of George III's reign and that more work needs to be done in examination of contemporary views on the British constitution in the late eighteenth century.

In the period since the referendum in September 2014 it has become increasingly evident that while independence for Scotland would have been a radical constitutional event, the consequence of the ‘No’ vote has been to place the continuing British Constitution in almost as much limelight. While the so-called draft Scotland Clauses annexed to the UK Government’s formal response to the Smith Commission report on the further devolution of powers to the Scottish Parliament are in the first instance a political solution to a political problem, nevertheless the proposed treatment of the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Government and the Sewel Convention appear likely to have effects of the deepest constitutional significance well beyond Scotland. This article explores the structure of those clauses, and some of their consequences for Scottish and British constitutionalism. It will be suggested that in addition to their institutional significance in Scotland, those consequences will include a profound challenge to the conventional model of (Westminster) Parliamentary supremacy. It may well be that such change is inherent in recent political interest in spreading devolution beyond the existing an obvious national units of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. What is less widely evident is appreciation of the connectedness of the British constitution and the broad consequences of appearing to adjust only one strand.

Recent critics who have challenged or revised Ernst Kantorowicz’s seminal reading of Shakespeare’s Richard II as “the tragedy of the King’s Two Bodies” share a common impulse to reject the tragic vision of political theology (inherited from Carl Schmitt) and imagine more affirmative, rational, and democratic alternatives. The first half of this essay returns to Richard II to uncover an overlooked model for a comedic political theology located not in King Richard’s decline, but in Henry IV’s ascension, particularly in the subplot of Aumerle’s failed conspiracy. These scenes challenge Schmittian political theology in two ways. First, the moment of sovereign decision is temporally displaced; second, this displacement enables a political resolution through a distributed and participatory form of fiction-making, which enacts at a practical level, while it simultaneously obscures, the operations of constituent and constituted power. The second half of the essay tests the broader applicability of these concepts by examining the legal reasoning and narrative techniques of the 1689 English Bill of Rights, a text which reflects both displaced temporality and distributed participatory performance by assiduously avoiding any decisive location of political sovereignty—whether in the monarchs or the parliament.

This essay offers a genealogy of the UK’s political constitution from the seventeenth century to the present, noting how it has drawn on different ideas and taken different forms over time, and highlighting the contingent nature of its current representative and parliamentary character. It identifies three forms of political constitutionalism over this period, and the emergence of a fourth, all associated with a particular account and justification of parliamentary sovereignty: the mixed constitution of the sovereignty of 'King in Parliament', that emerged in the 17th century and received its canonical expression with Montesquieu and then Blackstone in the eighteenth century; the adaptation of this account to the primacy of the Commons in the theory of parliamentary government developed by Hume, Burke and Dicey; the association of parliamentary sovereignty with representative democracy in the twentieth century; and, finally,  the  recent challenge to this form by a theory of popular sovereignty. Political constitutionalism is typically associated with the third form. However, a genealogy allows one to see how at different times the idea has been composed by different elements and been subject to contestation and debate - as is the case now. As a result, rather than viewing political constitutionalism as doomed or inadequate, and destined to be replaced by legal constitutionalism, it becomes possible to rethink political constitutionalism in different ways appropriate to new circumstances.

One of the great turning points in political and social history occured on a field near Runnymeade in 1215, when John of England put his seal to a charter granting liberties to every free land-holding man in England. Originally meant to pacify his rebellious barons, this Charter of Liberties and the Charter of the Forest have been the driving force of revolutions, civil wars and unending political debates in Britain and the United States.

How did the privileges demanded by a handful of angry English nobles become the basis for constitutions and modern natural rights, such as habeus corpus? This paper traces Magna Carta's evolution from Runnymede across the Atlantic to the floor of Congress and the Supreme Court, while analyzing the relevance of the Great Charter's tenants on current issues.

This article examines Tory principles in the eighteenth century by focusing on that party's arguments in the debates about the frequency of elections in 1716, when the duration of parliaments in Britain was extended from three to seven years. The Septennial Act (1716) was an epochal event and a crucial stage in the fortification of the Hanoverian regime and the supremacy of the Whigs in the eighteenth century. When protesting against this Act in the Lords and Commons, Tories resorted to arguments about the ancient constitution and fundamental law -- ideas which have more often been associated with Whiggism. In addition to its historical significance, the episode serves as a case study demonstrating the importance of studying the history of political thought together with political history.

« Le républicanisme paradoxal de Walter Bagehot (1826-1877) », fait suite à un colloque international sur « La République et l’idée républicaine en Grande-Bretagne » organisé par Pierre Lurbe au Laboratoire d’Etude et de Recherche du Monde Anglophone de l’université de Provence. Cet article montre comment Bagehot pouvait tout à la fois défendre une monarchie constitutionnelle modérée et avancer des idées républicaines très affirmées, tout en maintenant que la déférence restait l’une des clés d’un régime démocratique libéral propre à pousser la participation des citoyens au bien commun.

The papers collected in the present volume arose from a 2009 seminar organized by the Society of Legal Scholars and the University of Birmingham, and convened at the Law Society’s Hall in Bristol,  England.  The  seminar,  “Judges  and  Jurists:  Reflections  on  the  House  of  Lords,”  com-
memorated the centenary of the Society; and it chiefly focused on the transition from the House of  Lords,  as  the  U.K.’s  court  of  final  appeals,  to  the  prospects  of  the  newly  instituted  United Kingdom Supreme Court. “The aim of the volume,” according to the book-jacket description, “is
to reflect upon the jurisprudence of the House of Lords and to consider the prospects for judging in the new Supreme Court.” Given the aims of the Society of Legal Scholars, considerable focus is placed on the relationship between the work of judges and that of scholars of law and jurispru-
dence. The book pervasively highlights the continuing voice of the scholars. Though their writings have no legal authority, the volume’s editor remarks in his Introduction that in 2009, “in six out of the seven final decisions of the House, reference was made to academic literature” (p. 2).

چه‌بسا کانونی‌ترین چالش نظام‌های پادشاهی امر وراثت باشد. در انتقاد به سلطنت بسیار شنیده می‌شود که «چرا من پادشاه نشوم؟». این پرسش توبیخ‌گرانه گونه‌ای استیضاح ضمنی سلطنت است که مخاطب را به مسئله «شایستگی» و «لیاقت» زنهار می‌دهد. نوشتار کنونی در دو بخش کوشش می‌کند به این پندار که وراثت چیزی در برابر ارزش‌های دموکراتیک است پاسخ دهد و مخاطب را فرا می‌خواند تا به مسئله حق انتخاب و ربط و نسبت آن با نظام پادشاهی از دیدگاه دیگری (ورای جزم‌های جمهوری‌خواهانه) بنگرد. در پاره نخست تلاش شده تا از وراثت سیاسی (در معنای راستین آن) اعاده حیثیت شود و در پاره دوم برنهاده می‌شود که سلطنت یعنی سلطنت موروثی و پندارهایی چون پادشاه انتخابی نه انسجام مفهومی دارد، نه با تاریخ پادشاهی هم‌خوان است و نه می تواند ضمانت چیزی باشد. هدف نهایی مقاله نه تنها واکاوی پاره‌ای پندارها و پیش‌داوری‌ها ضد سلطنت است، بلکه همچنین دعوت خواننده به درنگ درباره معنا و صبغه اصلی وراثت سیاسی است. با لحاظ زمینه تاریخی این مفهوم، اندیشه وراثت نه تنها مانع حکم‌رانی خردمندانه نیست که می‌تواند سنگ بنای حفظ ساختار سیاسی و نظم مدنی باشد

This thesis, entitled "British and Romanian Constitutional Monarchies and Their Representations in the Royal Discourse of Queen Elizabeth II and King Mihai I", is mainly an investigation of the manner in which the two monarchs represent themselves and their role as distinct representatives of their peoples and rests on a critical analysis of their speeches.

In this article, the author examines the history of the transformation of the constitutional position of the Church of England in the context of the problem of her (self)identification. Using extensive source material, the author demonstrates that the constitutional position of the Established Church is an important element of its identity and throughout its history, it is the dynamics of the relationship between the reformed English Church and the Crown that largely determined the process of confessional selfidentification of the former. The connection between the Monarch and the Church of England was gradually established by law, beginning with major Acts, leading to the break with Rome, passed by the English Reformation Parliament between 1529 and 1534. However, it was only in the second half of the 17th — early 18th century, when nonconforming clergy were ejected and Catholics were excluded from the line of succession, that the final consolidation of the position of the Church of England in the developing British Constitution, defined by the author as, first and foremost, a system of government institutions and the principles according to which these institutions operate, individually and jointly, took place.

Es conocido entre los juristas continentales el adagio de que los ingleses no tienen Constitución, o siendo generosos, que se trata de una Constitución no escrita. Lo cierto es que, como tantas otras cosas en la Pérfida Albión, su Constitución tiene una naturaleza, cuando menos, peculiar. La particularidad de la Constitución británica estriba en que apenas se cumple ninguno de los parámetros anteriores. No se trata de un instrumento unitario, sino que está compuesto por un sinnúmero de normas que se encuentran dispersas por todo el ordenamiento jurídico y que proceden de diversas fuentes del derecho, principalmente leyes parlamentarias, pero también cientos de precedentes establecidos por resoluciones judiciales y gran cantidad de convenciones y principios no escritos. No hay una fecha célebre que recordar en conmemoración de su promulgación puesto que el acumen constitucional se ha ido acrecentando paulatinamente, desde el siglo XIII hasta nuestros días. No solo no está codificada, sino que ni siquiera existen obras que, a modo de compilación, recojan en un solo volumen las normas de carácter constitucional. Además, estas normas no reciben una nomenclatura especial ni ostentan primacía jerarquía dentro del ordenamiento jurídico, de forma que no se precisa un procedimiento especial para aprobarlas, reformarlas o derogarlas. Tampoco existe un órgano específico que tenga encargado expresamente el control de la constitucionalidad de las demás normas jurídicas. Ante este enigmático panorama, tan distinto del propio, es comprensible que el jurista avezado en las lides de la tradición constitucionalista continental, concluya que los ingleses no tienen Constitución. Pero como las meigas, haberla, hayla… En el presente artículo se realiza un análisis de la Constitución británica, exponiendo sus peculiaridades a la luz de su desarrollo histórico, de la filosofía jurídica que subyace y de las fuentes del derecho que la componen. Nos centraremos, asimismo, en el concepto de soberanía parlamentaria como principio rector de la Constitución y analizaremos cómo, en las últimas décadas, han ido quebrando los tradicionales paradigmas en los que se basaba su eficacia. La serie de reformas legislativas de formidable calado constitucional llevadas a cabo, junto con el caos constitucional derivado del proceso del Brexit, han significado para el constitucionalismo británico una verdadera incursión en aguas inexploradas que posiblemente, suponga el aldabonazo hacia su reforma y codificación.

In recent years, political scientists have begun to pay greater attention to political institutions and questions of institutional change. This article addresses a question that has been relatively ignored in the literature: What shapes mass opinion toward institutional and constitutional change? We develop two broad kinds of explanations of how voters see institutions. One is grounded in a conception of voters as self-interested actors, and the other considers a more ideological and psychological approach. We find empirical evidence consistent with both arguments. Using a broad categorization developed by Tsebelis (1990), we find that part of the answer to how voters see institutions lies in the kinds of institutions voters are being asked about: Different institutions prompt very different responses from different types of voters.

Conservative policy on devolution in 1997-98 relies on three core
concepts: the status quo, the Union, and parliamentary sovereignty.

The status quo is primarily informed by the adjacent idea of cognitive
imperfection; we must rely on the wisdom of generations and not the
fashion of our time. Yet institutions can only acquire knowledge in the
first place if they admit reform; conservatives do not therefore oppose
all change. However, proposals must be well thought out and tackle a
real grievance.

The Union needs the adjacent concept of diversity as well as unity;
without the former it collapses into uniformity and without the latter,
it ends in division. Conservatives seek to build ‘one nation’ that is
united despite faction, class, or territory yet, at the same time,
acknowledges the diversity of the country; this is held out to be the
unique calling of the Party.

Parliamentary sovereignty is fundamental, but not foundational, to
conservatives. Civic patriotism derives from our institutions and way of
life; in contrast, ethnic nationalism rests on blood and soil.
Parliament is the key element of civic patriotism, as its shared
decisions led to a shared history, shared values, and shared identity.
British identity can co-exist with others.

Administrative, deliberative, and civic devolution is justified as
incremental reform, with a real benefit; it recognises diversity and
maintained unity; and is no threat to parliamentary sovereignty.
Conservatives have a history of administrative devolution to Scotland
and, to a lesser extent Wales; their record of deliberative devolution
was patchy before 1997-98; and civic devolution, at least in its
political form, could have no real precedent.

Labour’s plans for devolution are opposed for being extensive and
piecemeal; this makes them dangerous. They are seen as a slippery slope
to the break up of Britain, since disillusionment in Scotland and Wales,
together with a backlash in England, engenders conflict. Finance is a
key flashpoint, alongside West Lothian. Devolution also creates rivals
to Parliament and, more seriously, poses an existential threat by
jeopardising the equality of MPs.

Each part of the narrative – thought, record, and opposition – has
precedents in the conservative tradition; moreover, some of the
ideological techniques deployed by the Party also have parallels in
earlier political argument.