Public Law 1

Question 1

What is public law?

Answer 1

The law involving the relationship between the state and the individual.

Question 2

What is constitutional law?

Answer 2

• The structure and rules of government (legislature, executive, judiciary)
• Relationship of government institutions and the limits within which they can lawfully act
• The relationship between the individual (citizen) and the state

Question 3

What is a constitution by definition?

Answer 3

A constitution is the set of the most important rules that regulate the relations among the different parts of the government of a given country.

Question 4

What is a constitution’s 3 functions?

Answer 4

• creates the institutions of the state.
• regulates the relations between those institutions.
• regulates the relations between those institutions and the people (citizens) they govern.

Question 5

What is constitutionalism purpose?

Answer 5

1. Limits on Government.
2. Protection of human rights.

Question 6

Why is the UK’s constitution flexible and not rigid?

Answer 6

1. Lack of single document (uncodified).
2. Ongoing debate (continuous adaption).

Question 7

What are the 8 different classifications of constitutions?

Answer 7

1. Legal
2. Political
3. Liberal
4. Socialist
5. Authoritarian
6. Formal
7. Material
8. Sham

Question 8

What is a formal constitution?

Answer 8

The text/evidence of a constitution presented by the legal elites.

Question 9

What is a material constitution?

Answer 9

Challenges the idea of a formal constitution.

Implies we shouldn’t look at whats presented in the constitution, instead, should consider where the power actually lies.

Question 10

What is a sham constitution?

Answer 10

A written constitution is not the entire picture.

A constitutional law appears to be a different type of constitutional order.

Question 11

What are the 4 key characteristics of the UK’s constitution?

Answer 11

1. Uncodified
2. Government Accountability
3. Legal and Political constitutionalism
4. Multi-layered nature

Question 12

What makes the UK’s constitution uncodified?

Answer 12

• No single authoritative source of constitutional law
• The UK has a sovereign parliament (parliament can make or unmake any law)
• A flexible constitution – in the sense that no constitutional rule makes it more difficult to change the constitution compared to ordinary laws
• Constitutional conventions – rooted in tradition and have been adhered to for centuries

Question 13

What is an advantage and disadvantage of the UK’s uncodified constitution?

Answer 13

Advantage = the constitution does not become out-of-date

Disadvantage = the constitution can be amended too easily even with a narrow majority & protection of rights at the behest of the government

Question 14

How are the government held to account in the UK’s constitution?

Answer 14

Parliamentary Sovereignty and the government’s support for this power.

The government also plays a role in driving the law-making agenda.

Question 15

What is the classification of the UK’s constitution and why?

Answer 15

• Traditionally, was a political constitution:
• relationships between state institutions based on political understandings, not legal rules.
• protection of the constitution is through political process, not legal processes (courts).
• Now, moved towards a legal constitution (Human Rights Act 1998):
• relationships between state institutions based on legal rules and put faith in the judicial, not the political, system.
• ensuring protection of minorities requires legal process.

Question 16

What are the multi-layers of the UK’s constitution?

Answer 16

• Devolution (Late 90’s the separation of states came into place).
• EU Law (EU Law was superior to domestic law while the UK existed in the EU, however after the UK left it does not hold much power).