Politics: UK constitution
3 sources of the constitution
1)statute law
2)common law
3)royal prerogative
1911 & 1949 parliament acts
1911 - ended the absolute veto of lords over leg...
1949....
both acts increased the democratic accountability of westminster
European Communities Act 1972
under uk membbership, all leg had to conform with eu law - an incursion to the hallowed doctrine of parl sov...
recent constitiutional changes - modernisation of political institutions
HoL act 1999 - removed all but 92 hereditary peers from the house of lords and allowed for the intro of more nominated life peers...
CRA 2005 - created a seperate sc, replaced law lords = greater sense of juducial independence & sep of powers....
recent constitutional changes - democratisation
Referendums Act 1997 - refs in scot and wales over creation of devolved assemblies....
2011 ftpa - pm secure 2/3 of mps to call for early gen elec istead of doing it unilaterally....
Recent constitutional changes - human rights
HRA 1998 - incorporated echr into uk law = uk courts has to take echr into account when judging cases on human rights.....
freedom of information act 2000 - gave indivs opportunity to access info held by public bodies including national/local government....
How does constitution uphold rights?
1)Judicial review - more diff in uk than us...
2)HRA - enables judges to challenge cases on the basis of hr ..
3)ancient documents such as the magna carta 1215 and bill of rights 1689
constitutional changes since 1997 have affected the british constitution
1)devolution has affected the unitary nature of the constitution - created a quasi federal structure whereby a lot of power and policy making in key areas such as transport and taxtion now lie in edinburgh, cardiff and belfast - dev hasnt been extended to england
2)impact of ftpa on prerogative powers of the pm - trad, pm call early gen elec thru formality of asking monarch to dissolve parl e.g. 1983 and 2001....
individual rights/collective rights
individual rights - held by indiv such as right to fair trial or right to not face discrim
collective rights - rights belong to groups ranging from TUs, faith based, gender/disability/sexuality groups
how can indiv/collective rights clash with each other?
1)collective rights clash with indiv rights - teachers collectively go on strike = rights of indiv to education inevitably removed....
2)collective rights affected by indiv right such as holding a religious faith - lgbtq+ indivs may feel that their rights are infringed by a bakery's refusal to make a cake for same-sex wedding....
3)indiv right to practice religion following a moral code such as refraining from drinking or disapproval of homosexuality - yet at odds....