U N I T E D Magna Carta, the house of commons, and the parliamentary-cabinet system of government are

K I N G D O M constitutional ideas that have greatly influenced many countries. The constitutional system of
the United Kingdom, the birthplace of these developments, however, is still evolving.

General Information The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland includes England, Scotland, and
Wales, as well as Northern Ireland, but not the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. Great
Britain, or simply Britain, refers to England, Scotland, and Wales, although before the 1967
Welsh Language Act, England included Wales. With an area of some 245,000 square kilo-
meters, not including dependent territories, the United Kingdom lies across the English
Channel, north and west of continental Europe. London, which has an urban population of
around 7 million, is the capital of this country of approximately 61 million persons.
The United Kingdom ushered in the industrial revolution, and its economy today is
based on services and manufacturing. A tunnel under the English Channel directly linking
Britain with continental Europe was opened in 1994. Constitutional reforms at the end of the
decade led to the devolution of local authority to Scotland and Wales and to elections for
their new local parliaments in 1999. The Northern Ireland acts of 1998 and 2000, so far, seem
to have provided a basis for a peaceful settlement of the conflicts that were endemic to the
region for so long a time.

Type of Government: Parliamentary constitutional monarchy, with a monarch, a prime

minister and cabinet, a bicameral legislature, and a judiciary

Date of Constitution: Unwritten; 1215 (Magna Carta, earliest constitutional document)

Constitutional History Julius Caesar led two expeditions to the British Isles in the first century b.c., subduing at least
in the south the native Celts, who had settled there during the Iron Age. Roman settlements
in England lasted for about four hundred years. The Romans were followed by Germanic
invaders—including the Angles, from whom England derives its name, and the Saxons—
who drove the natives to the west and north.
Because the newcomers did not integrate with the inhabitants and because Latin had not
become entrenched in England, the Anglo-Saxon language took root and flourished. Alfred
the Great, who ruled from a.d. 871 to 899, translated Latin works into Anglo-Saxon when he
was not busy e≈ciently administering his kingdom, which included meeting with regional
leaders in a council called the Witenagemot.
The true Kingdom of England, however, dates from 927, when the king of Wessex and
Mercia incorporated territory recently occupied by the Danes and the English portions of
Northumbria, creating an east-west demarcation line between England and Scotland. By this
time the English king was the keeper of the laws, and his writ conveyed his authority
throughout the realm. By the eleventh century the continued policy of taxing freeholders of
land for protection against the Danes had made the English crown wealthy, even by conti-
nental European standards.
A descendant of Alfred’s failed to produce an heir, however, thus setting the stage for Duke
William of Normandy in France to dispute the title of the Anglo-Saxon Harold. In 1066
Harold’s forces, weary from fighting o∑ a Norwegian attack, were beaten by William’s
invading army. The previous two hundred years of Anglo-Saxon rule, however, were not
dramatically a∑ected by the twelve thousand foreigners who followed William to England,
except that the English feudal system acquired a stronger European flavor and the adminis-
tration of the government was reformed.
The thirteenth century was pivotal: in 1204 King John lost Normandy to the French king,
and in 1215 English barons in the north refused to support the recapture of Normandy and

468 U N I T E D K I N G D O M
forced concessions on John—specifically, Magna Carta. Although he later canceled the
document, it was restored by Henry III and confirmed by Edward I in 1297. Magna Carta was
the first document of constitutional stature in what is now the United Kingdom, whose
constitution remains unwritten.
The first use of the term parliament was recorded in 1236, but it was not until the four-
teenth century that the institution took shape. In 1340 what had started out as a way for the
king to give instructions and receive information from the far reaches of the kingdom had
broadened to include representatives of the counties (shires), called the commons. By 1350
the parliament was chiefly engaged in authorizing funds and making laws requested by the
monarch, judges, or the commons, and the king’s council had become the house of lords.
Although the parliament could raise concerns about the government—for example, the
need to reform the king’s council—it was dependent on the monarch to call it to meet. By
1500, after civil strife, England emerged a whole nation now including Wales, and by midcen-
tury Henry VIII and the “Reformation Parliament” had severed o≈cial ties with the Catholic
Church of Rome.
In 1628 Edward Coke, chief justice of the King’s Bench court, and others in the house of
commons pushed through a bill, the Petition of Right—not sent to the house of lords—that
limited the king’s powers. Later, civil war again broke out over the very nature of English
society, and the rebel Oliver Cromwell, leader of the parliamentary forces, was able to purge
the parliament of all opposition, abolish the house of lords, and behead the king. Yet, in
1660, after Cromwell’s death, the monarchy was restored, and parliament resumed its prerev-
olutionary role. In 1680 parties called the Whigs and the Tories arose from those who were
“for” and “against” the king’s meeting with the parliament.
England expanded overseas and built an empire between 1688–1689—the years of the
Glorious Revolution, when William of Orange ascended the throne and the English bill of
rights was enacted—and 1832, the year of the Reform Act. Scotland and Ireland were added
to England in 1707 and 1800, respectively. At home, however, the monarchy became isolated
from the realities of government, permitting the realization of a liberal, democratic consti-
tution. With the first Hanoverian monarch, George I, who spoke only German, the leader of
the majority party in the house of commons began speaking for the cabinet, whose members
were selected from that body. While Thomas Paine fulminated against the monarchy in the
wake of the American and French Revolutions—calling the English bill of rights the “bill of
wrongs”—the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland moved incrementally forward
toward a stable political system without major internal disruptions.
Documents that have changed the constitution of the United Kingdom since the nine-
teenth century include the parliament acts of 1911 and 1949, the European Communities Act
of 1972, the Human Rights Act of 1998, the Scotland Act of 1998, the Northern Ireland acts of
1998 and 2000, the House of Lords Act of 1999, and the Constitutional Reform Act of 2005.

To a unique extent the British constitution developed without outside influence. Today, Influences
however, as a member of the European Union and a ratifier of the European Convention for
the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (1950), its government actions
are increasingly subject to outside influence. The British constitution has had a tremendous
influence on many countries, such as Australia, India, and Malaysia, to name only a few.

The British constitution is a tapestry, deftly woven and embellished over time. The warp is T H E C O N S T I T U T I O N
the monarchy, and the woof is the indomitable self-esteem of the descendants of the first
Anglo-Saxon invaders.
The United Kingdom has fostered and even exported the notion of the rule of law—that
a government’s actions are limited by law and are not merely the whims of some human

U N I T E D K I N G D O M 469
 authority. However, the concept of the supremacy of constitutional laws, which is found
either expressly or implicitly in the constitutions of most other countries, such as the United
States, France, and Germany, does not apply in the United Kingdom. The British constitu-
tion is an agglomeration of statutes, judicial interpretations, conventions, laws and customs
of the parliament, common law principles, and selective jurisprudence, such that even
scholars may disagree on what is and what is not a part of the constitution. The one indis-
putable fact is the supremacy of the British parliament, which in theory precludes judicial
review. As Sir William Blackstone quoted in his famous legal commentaries: “The power and
jurisdiction of parliament, says Sir Edward Coke, is so transcendent and absolute, that it
cannot be confined, either for causes or persons, within any bounds” (Commentaries on the
Laws of England, 1771, 1:160).

Fundamental Rights The first generally recognized individual rights in England were those under common law:
the rights inherent in access to the monarch’s courts for remedies even against feudal lords.
But the form of pleading at common law soon became rigid, and for justice to be done,
equity courts emerged and even became supreme in matters of conflict with the common
law. The parliament passed laws that laid a foundation for individual rights—for example,
the Petition of Right of 1628, the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679, and the Bill of Rights of 1689,
basically declaring rights of the parliament. However, the United Kingdom, like Australia,
has no enacted individual bill of rights as is found in the U.S. constitution. Constitutional
traditions inherent in the United Kingdom’s system of government are its only real consti-
tutional protections.
In 1951, however, the nation ratified the European Convention for the Protection of Human
Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (1950); grievances for alleged violations of human rights
in the United Kingdom have been filed with the convention court. And in 2000 the Human
Rights Act, incorporating the convention into British law, went into e∑ect.

Division of Powers The United Kingdom is a unitary state like France, although special provisions apply to
Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, and “the British Islands”—the Channel Islands and
the Isle of Man, which are part of Britain only for defense and foreign relations purposes. A
strict separation of powers does not exist in the United Kingdom: the monarch, who is head
of state, and the parliament formally constitute the legislature; the prime minister, who is
head of government, is an elected member of the legislature and chosen by and responsible
to the lower house of the legislature; and the highest appeals court consists of the lords of
appeal, or “law lords,” who sit in the upper house of the legislature. Technically, the courts
have no power of judicial review.

The Executive Monarch. In the United Kingdom the monarch, also known as the sovereign, is the heredi-
tary head of state. But Elizabeth II, the queen, is as much a subject of the British constitu-
tion as any of her subjects. She is granted the “royal prerogative,” or preeminence over and
above all other persons, but she may claim no prerogatives except those the law allows. Theo-
retically, she appoints the prime minister, assembles and dissolves the legislature, approves
all laws, makes foreign policy, and commands the armed forces.

Prime Minister and Cabinet. Since the Glorious Revolution in 1688–1689, the supremacy of the
parliamentary legislature has in fact reduced the monarch to a figurehead, albeit a wealthy
and pampered one. Today in the United Kingdom, the prime minister and the sixteen to
twenty-three cabinet members he or she presides over rule on behalf of the people.
The prime minister, about whom there are almost no statutory provisions, is the govern-
ment’s chief executive and chief legislator. The paramount constitutional convention is

470 U N I T E D K I N G D O M
that the sovereign must act on the advice of the ministers and, in particular, the prime
minister. The ministers, in turn, are individually and collectively responsible to the lower
house of the legislature and therefore ultimately to the electorate, as the upper house is not
elected. Civil servants are not political but are responsible to the political government
administration.
As leader of the controlling party in the lower house, which is not always the absolute
majority party, the prime minister is someone who has come up through the party ranks. As
head of the cabinet and the controlling party, the prime minister has enormous power,
checked, however, to a large extent by convention and the not-so-easily cowed “loyal oppo-
sition,” or minority party in the lower house. Nevertheless, the prime minister decides the
agenda for cabinet meetings, makes key policy decisions, deals with urgent matters of state,
and develops foreign and domestic policy and legislative programs. No votes are taken in the
cabinet meetings, so the prime minister must sense support or the lack of it.
Other limits on the prime minister’s power are the narrow range of people, all politicians
with their own constituencies, available for selection to key posts; the need to appease his or
her own party and factions within the party; and the fact that he or she must work through
a powerful civil service bureaucracy known as Whitehall. The United Kingdom, unlike the
United States, has no political spoils system. As in most parliamentary-cabinet type of
governments, ministers are put in charge of government departments, but they must deal
with the entrenched bureaucracy to get things done.

Parliament. The British parliament, a bicameral legislature, consists of an upper and a The Legislature
lower house: the house of lords and the house of commons. Compared to the United
States, the two houses are extremely unequal in power. As the nineteenth-century English
philosopher John Stuart Mill described it, the function of representative bodies such as the
house of commons is to control the business of government, but not actually do it,
because such a body is best suited to deliberating rather than administering. The proper
duty of a representative body, according to Mill, is to ensure that the proper persons
decide matters of administration and control the government by compelling a full
justification for all its acts.

Upper House. Until 1999, the house of lords consisted of about eight hundred members
known as peers, who had inherited their seats; more than three hundred life peers, who had
acquired their seats by appointment pursuant to a 1958 law; twenty-six Church of England
bishops; and twenty-one law lords, who, until 2008, will constitute the highest appellate
court in the nation. Only several hundred, however, attended sessions with any degree of
regularity. By virtue of the House of Lords Act in 1999, the upper house of parliament was
pared down to ninety-two remaining hereditary peers, but, together with other appointed
members, the total is still well over seven hundred.
During the first half of the twentieth century, the upper house’s veto power was taken
away, except in the case of an act to extend parliament beyond five years. The judicial func-
tion of the house of lords, performed by members referred to as “law lords,” will be trans-
ferred to a new supreme court in 2008.

Lower House. The house of commons has 651 members elected at least every five years. All
men and women at least eighteen years old may vote, including citizens of the Republic of
Ireland residing in the United Kingdom. Unlike most other Western European democracies,
which have some form of proportional representation, candidates for the lower house with
a relative majority of the votes in their constituencies are elected, a process that tends to
maintain the basically two-party system. The United Kingdom’s system of government

U N I T E D K I N G D O M 471
 di∑ers from the two-party system in the United States, where the size and diversity of the
country have created a plethora of interest groups that only come together as two parties to
compete for the presidency every four years, not necessarily to form a unified party govern-
ment. While the lower house in the United Kingdom is supposed to act as a check on the
prime minister and his or her government, it is not su≈ciently sta∑ed to perform this
function well, and the committee system is not as developed as in the United States.
The house of commons physically reflects the concept of a party in power and a party out
of power: the members of the two groups sit facing each other across a wide aisle, the
majority party on the right of the speaker’s throne and the opposition party on the left, with
a “shadow cabinet,” ready and waiting to take o≈ce, in the front row. The speaker does not
have to be a member of the majority party.
Being supreme, the parliament determines its own rules, and it elects a speaker from
among its members. Recently, a woman was elected speaker for the first time. Under the
constitution the prime minister may ask the monarch to dissolve the parliament and call for
elections, usually about a year and a half before the five years are up, when the situation
appears to favor the party in o≈ce.
Except for money bills, which must originate in the lower house, bills may be introduced
in either house by members or the government, and they are debated in draft form. A bill has
to pass three readings, although the first reading is a formality. The second reading is the
important one, with serious debate held. If not rejected, it goes to a standing committee,
then to the committee of the whole lower house, and then to a fairly formal third reading.
After action by the lower house, a bill is sent to the upper house, which in most cases may
not withhold its consent. Finally, to become e∑ective, a bill must have the royal assent, which
today is merely a formality.

The Judiciary Lord Chancellor. Currently, at the apex of the British judicial system is the lord chancellor,
who is a member of the government and generally a member of the cabinet as well as a
barrister holding political o≈ce and a member of the house of lords. The lord chancellor’s
position and duties, which defy any notion of a true separation of powers, are those of senior
law o≈cer of the government, head of the judiciary, and law lord entitled to sit in the house
of lords in both a legislative and a judicial capacity.
The highest court of appeal is the house of lords. The Appellate Jurisdiction Act of 1876
requires that appeals be heard by the lord chancellor, lords of appeal in ordinary (senior
members of the judiciary), and peers who have held high judicial o≈ce. There is also a court
of appeals, whose ex o≈cio members include the high o≈cials of the judiciary, former lord
chancellors, and the lords of appeal in ordinary. Other courts include the high court of
justice, the crown court, and county courts.
High court o≈cials such as the lord chief justice, the master of the rolls, and the lords and
lords justices of appeal, like the lord chancellor, are appointed by the monarch on the
recommendation of the prime minister. Inferior court judges are appointed by the monarch
on the advice of the lord chancellor. Membership in the British judicial system has tended
to be narrowly limited to the upper and upper-middle classes, and the judiciary as a whole
tends to be conservative. The parliament has enacted laws to enhance the independence of
judges by restricting the power to remove them, although the lord chancellor under certain
conditions can remove inferior court judges for misconduct or proven incapacity, and there
is a mandatory retirement age.
The government rarely interferes with the courts, but it has in certain cases filed as
amicus curiae (“a friend of the court”); the court may attempt to resolve such cases in light
of the government’s concerns. In a constitutional system in which the legislature is acknowl-
edged as supreme by the courts, as in fact occurred in the Sheri∑ of Middlesex case in 1840,

472 U N I T E D K I N G D O M
true constitutional review is not possible because the legislature is free to change the consti-
tution by passing ordinary legislation.
The Constitutional Reform Act of 2005 will replace the house of lords as the highest court
of appeal with a supreme court in 2008, and the role of the lord chancellor will be greatly
modified. The new supreme court will consist of twelve judges appointed by the monarch;
however, the first judges will be “persons who immediately before the commencement [of
the new court] are Lords of Appeal in Ordinary,” and the senior member of that group
becomes the president of the court. The court has appellate jurisdiction that includes
appeals from civil proceedings and the act gives it the “power to determine any question
necessary . . . for the purposes of doing justice in an appeal under any enactment.”

The constitution of the United Kingdom may be amended by a simple majority vote of the Amending the Constitution
legislature, by legal decisions unchallenged by the legislature, by international agreements,
and by custom and traditional usage that become accepted as having constitutional status.

U N I T E D K I N G D O M 473