Britain must be the country whose constitution happens to be one of the most laborious, daunting and tiresome matter to grasp. Unlike the USA, the students of Politics and Law in the UK must relentlessly scour through bottomless wells of academic works, heaps of legislation and court cases and navigate a complex web of unwritten conventions so that they may barely commence their journey in this vast discipline. Yet, in political discourse, the name of the constitution is so easily flaunted as if it were a sword that can vanquish all retorts from the opposition. From the political left we hear of the Human Rights Act 1998, which may be the closest document that somewhat resembles a constitution; whereas, from the political right we hear of these so-called natural rights such as the freedom of speech and association whose importance is indisputable to any functioning democracy. Both seem so right yet both are wrong, but perhaps not for too long.
Ultimately, a constitution is a document or sets of documents that enshrine the rights of the people, define the powers and limits of the state and those who hold office and serve as the supreme law and interpretative instrument of the land to settle disputes and cases. However, the British constitutions is far more peculiar, as even though due to its uncodified and unentrenched characters it is easily alterable and found among many sources, it is contingent upon two principles that breathe through the entire discipline and guide politics. Those principles, as A.V Dicey expounds, are Parliamentary Sovereignty and the Rule of Law.
The principles exalt Parliament as the supreme authority over the land that can make, amend or unmake any laws whose outcome is enforceable in the Courts. This has clear widespread ramification allowing Parliament to have unfettered power. And as we know, the nature of Parliament can be and is fickle leading to highs where citizen enjoy robust sets of rights and freedoms such as with the unnecessarily controversial HRA 1998 or lows where citizen are arrested for mere tweets and retweets as seen in the aftermath of the Southport Riots.
Before we commence to criticise the obvious flaws with such principles, one must ask themselves how these principles spung up. As with many questions in British Politics, the answer lies in the past, a past even before the first Parliament. In 1215, The Magna Carta, a document that sought to limit the power and privileges of the Monarch and to expand the rights of ‘free men’ and even the serfs, would be composed and spearheaded by a group of barons rebelling against King John of England. This event would onset a long struggle between the Monarchy and Parliament that would culminate with the Civil War (1642-1651) and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 where the forces of both Monarchs would be quashed, and Parliament triumph over absolutist zeal.
Therefore, even the Principle of Parliamentary Sovereignty was once revolutionary rather than despotic, but it is a principle of a time where Parliamentarian would sprung up into office with the votes of few rich landowner. However, the 19th and 20th century would usher an epoch of change, our epoch of popular democracy with reforms that enlarged the franchise first for men and later for women. No longer was the Parliamentarian brought into office by their nobiliary titles and wealthy connections, but rather by the explicit consent of the people through the ballot box. Yet in the way that the constitution ‘shifted’ from sovereignty within the Monarch to sovereignty within the Parliament, we see no similar phenomenon that enshrine sovereignty within the populace, which has allowed Parliament to become the despotic tyrant it once fought against. No person should be arrested for mere tweets or retweets as Labour has done and neither should any party bring into question the status of law-abiding naturalised citizens as Reform and Restore intend to do.
The fundamental rights of citizens, the very rights that uphold and shape the liberal democracy that we live in, have been for long undermined by a Parliament that is inebriated by the same absolutist zeal of the Monarchs of older time. Perhaps, it is time that ‘We the People’ struggle for the rights that we are entitled to against a government whose duties to serve us it has infringed. Therefore, if we wish to live in a flourishing liberal democracy that empowers and represents the people rather than undermine them, the very concept of sovereignty should be enshrined within the people within a codified constitution that clearly exalt the rights and freedoms of citizens while defining and limiting the powers and duties of Parliament. Perhaps, there is no better time for a codified British constitution!
