CHAPTER 2

THE UK CONSTITUTION AND ITS CORE INSTITUTIONS

INTRODUCTION:

Q: what is a constitution?
 In lay terms a constitution is a set of rules which govern an organization e.g.
any social club, trade union or nation state, which have defined objectives
and departments, or offices established to accomplish those objectives
 A constitution is required to define the power, rights and duties of the
organization members.
 The constitution will both define the manner in which the rules, in fact
operate and dictate what ought to happen in a given situation.
 The constitutional rules, whether written or unwritten, facilitate the stability
and predictability of behaviour.
Defining constitution under law:
 professor KC defines the constitution of a state as “ the whole system of
government of a country, the collection of rules which establish and
regulate or govern the government”
Importance of constitution
 A constitution is something prior to government, giving legitimacy to the government and
defining the powers under which a government may act.
 The constitution sets limits both to the powers which can be exercised and to the manner
in which they maybe exercised.
 Constitution defines the legality of power.
Classifications:
Salient characteristics of the constitution are

Written:
 a written constitution represents
and attempt by politician s and
statesmen to codify all the
important laws and rules relating
to the way in which the state will
be governed (single document or
series of documents with or
without amendments, defining
basic rules of state).
Unwritten:
 Whereas, in unwritten constitution
there is no attempt made to set
out all the constitutional
arrangements in coherent
framework
Classifications:
Salient characteristics of the constitution are
Rigid constitution:
 it Rests on a question that whether
or not a constitution can be
amended with ease.
 Written constitution provides a
legal framework for the state. If we
want to amend any provision in a
written constitution a stringent
procedure will be followed. It main
characteristic is that amendments
and repeals are difficult to make.
Flexible constitution:
 However, in an unwritten
constitution parliament is a
supreme law-making body and
can pass any law. Moreover, no
court may hold an act of
parliament to be void.
 So this flexibility enables UK to
bring any change with minimum
constitutional formality
 Federal and unitary constitution.
 There exists a division of power between
central government and the individual
state or provinces which make up a
federation. The powers divided between
federal government and states or
provinces will be clearly set down in the
constituent document.
 Some powers will be reserved exclusively
to the federal government whereas,
some powers will be allocated exclusively
to the regional government.
 In UK there is no defining written
constitution controlling powers are
central government or of the UK
parliament. The state in theory is unitary.
 There exist a sovereign legislative body,
which represents the ultimate law-making
power in the state. No power is given to
the local government other than that
decreed by the parliament.
 Multilayered: the UK parliament has
legislated for whole of the United
Kingdom (it is legally sovereign). The
transfer of wide ranging law-making
powers to Northern Ireland Assembly,
Scottish parliament and National
Assembly of Whales represents diffusion of
powers.
 The unitary aspects of the UK constitution
have been diminished it is now more
accurate to label it as a multilayered
form of government
 Republican and monarchial constitution.
 A republic is a state having figure head  Whereas, UK has the system of
democratically elected president, constitutional monarchy
answerable to the electorate and the
 The position of the head of the state is
constitution.
different (Queen Elizabeth 2 is the head
 The president of the state represents the of state) and all acts of government are
state on formal international and undertaken in the name of the crown.
domestic occasions. He is the one who
enters into treaties.