S2: Constitutional Conventions

Question 1

What is a convention?

Answer 1

A usual or accepted way of behaving i.e. using your knife or fork to eat food, so cutlery is the convention
According to Dicey, coventions are defined as ‘understanding, habits or practices which though they may regulate the… conduct of several members of the sovereign powers aren’t in reality laws at all since they aren’t enforced by the courts’.

Question 2

Why do we need a constitution ?

Answer 2

• Allocate power
• Provide accountability
  Consensus
• Permanency

Question 3

Examples of constitutional conventions

Answer 3

-Royal Assent- Before a bill becomes an act of parliament, it must get stamped and get signed by the monarch. It would be unconventional for a monarch to refuse to sign a piece of legislation. It’s very unusual for a monarch to refuse to sign this piece of legislation off, as even if it goes against the monarch’s core values or even if it means that the legislation states they want to abolish the monarch, it would be seen as unconventional.
-Judicial Appointment- It’s conventional behaviour when the judiciary is appointed to their specific role so when the judge is appointed to the judiciary, they must sever all ties they have with the political party.
-Ministerial Responsibility- This comes in two parts:
1. Collective Responsibility- This convention argued any disagreements amongst the govt that happened when determining policies must be kept secret from public coversations.
2. Individual Responsibility

Question 4

Should more parts of our constitution be codified ?

Answer 4

Yes-Conventions epitomise the issues with an uncodified constitution- Feldman (5)
No- Marshall and Moodie (6) argue that:
-This wouldn’t make them more enforceable, and it wouldn’t prevent dispute on what the rules would be
-The definition might not successfully describe the convention
-This would be hard to reflect social changes