UK Constitution Flashcards
What are the five main principles of the traditional UK constitution?
- Parliamentary sovereignty
- Parliamentary government
- Constitutional monarch
- Unitary state
- Rule of law
What are the five sources of the UK constitution?
- Statute law
- Common law
- Conventions
- Authoritative works
- Treaties
What is Common Law?
- Customs and judicial precedent (when judicial decisions clarify the meaning of statute or make rulings in the absent of statute)
e.g., royal prerogative
What is Statute Law?
- All legislation created by parliament.
e.g. 2005 constitutional reform act & 1918 representation of the Peoples act
What is the most important source of the UK Constitution?
- Statute law due to the principle of parliamentary sovereignty.
- All other sources can be overridden by statute law.
What are conventions?
- Customs and practices which are accepted as the way of doing things.
- Can be removed or made permanent by statute law.
What’s an example of a convention that became statute law?
- Fixed term parliament act 2011.
- It put into law the convention that the government should resign if it is defeated in a vote of no confidence.
What are treaties?
- Agreements signed with other counties.
E.g the treaty that entered Britain into the EEC in 1972 and the Maastricht Treaty (1992) which established the EU.
Why do we need a limited government?
- form of limiting power and checks, providing protection for the individual
‘Man is not free unless the government is limited’ -Reagan
What is parliamentary sovereignty?
Supreme, restricted power, which can in theory make, repeal or amend any law.
What is the ‘fusion of powers’?
Where the executive branch and legislative branch of gov intermingle.
How many seats are needed to fork a majority?
326
What is the Fixed Term Parliament Act 2011?
- Removed the PM’s power to hold an early election and instead handed control to the House of Commons.
- Under those rules an early election could only be held under certain circumstances - such as if two-thirds of MPs agreed to one.
- It sets date of election to be every 5 years, reducing manipulation of the date. (There was an option to start an election based on opinion polls)
- It was demanded by the Liberal Democrats.
What happened in 2022 which challenges the significance of the 2011 Fixed Term Parliament Act?
- After winning the 2019 election, the Conservatives introduced a new law - called the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022.
- This restored the PM’s traditional power to call elections at a time of their choosing.
What was the Freedom of information act 2000?
- It was a response to widespread perception that there was a need for greater transparency in gov.
E.g MP expenses scandal 2009 (The disclosure of widespread misuse of allowances and expenses permitted aroused widespread anger among the UK public).
Also, in 2023, Labour used this act to gain an insight into gov spending in private schools like Eton.
What were labours principles to constitutional reform?
- modernisation
- democratisation
- devolution
- stronger protection of rights
What was the HofL reform act 2014?
- Peers given right to retire/resign their seats.
- Also allows them to be removed as a result of a serious criminal offence.
- 58 resigned under this term by April 2017.
What was the Scottish Act 2016?
- Gave Scottish gov greater power of tax.
- Act recognised permanence of devolution and that a ref would be required before Scotland parliament could be abolished.
