There are 2 differences with constitutions- uncodified and codified. Today, in this article, I am going to tell you about both of them- with advantages and disadvantages, also examples. Keep reading to find out all about the different political systems of the world and how they protect the rights of individual citizens.
Constitutions- codified and uncodified
One fundamental difference between the constitutions is that some are codified and some are uncodified, such as the UK constitution is uncodified and the US constitution is uncodified.
In the UK, the constitution has evolved over time and it is not written down in a single document- therefore this means it is uncodified. This therefore means that any legislation which comes in to conflict with the written constitution in the US shall be struck down as unconstitutional by the supreme court. This makes the American constitution far less flexible than the United Kingdom constitution.
The process of amending the constitution is extremely rare, with only 27 amendments passed, and only 17 of them in the last 220 years, however on the other hand, in the UK the uncodified nature of the constitution means it can be altered much more easily by acts of legislation.
For example, in the UK any Act of Parliament can change the UK constitution. The UK moved
quickly after the Dunblane shootings in 1996 to ban handguns. Whereas in the USA the second
amendment enshrines the right to bear arms which means that it is unlikely that any gun control
legislation would be enacted as a result.
As a result of being codified there is a very clear process for making changes to the US
Constitutions. This process means that it is very difficult to amend the US Constitution. There have
only been 27 successful amendments out of around 11,000 proposed amendments. However, it is
much easier to make changes to the UK constitution. This further demonstrates that the
constitution in the US is considered to have a higher status than the UK constitution.
However, the UK constitution is considerably more flexible than the US constitution which makes it
much more able to be amended as well as responding to current issues. It also makes it more able
to remove individual rights from citizens that the US. This can be seen as a strength and a
weakness.
A strength of it is that the flexibility of the constitution helps to react and respond to meet the
demands of a modern world as necessary such as banning hand guns after the Dunblane shooting.
All that is needed is a simple majority in parliament. Another example of this is Britain entering
the European Community in 1973.
It is often the Prime Minister’s prerogative that is used to by pass Parliament. It is often a
question of trust with people trusting the government to act in their interests and respect their
traditional freedoms but this is often dependent on the Prime Minister. Other PMs might not be
as respectful to our freedoms.
Constitutions- the way rights are protected.
A final difference between the two constitutions is the way in which rights are protected by
the constitutions. In the USA this is done by the Bill of Rights whereas in the UK a principle of the
Rule of Law exists. In the UK there are certain unwritten principles which transcend any law passed by a particular parliament known as the rule of law which means British citizens possess what are known as ‘residual freedoms’. This means that there are certain freedoms which naturally ‘reside’ with an individual, and upon which the onus lies with government to justify changing or removing them, such as freedom of speech.
In everyday practice this essentially means that everyone is equal under the law. Whereas the US has the Bill of Rights which is the name given to the first 10 amendments to the Constitution of the United States. These amendments were proposed by the ‘Founding Fathers’ who felt that they would provide democratic safeguards that he felt were missing in the original Constitution. The main purpose of the Bill of Rights was to define the scope of individual freedom in the United States and to make the political system more democratic.
For example, the Bill of Rights provided such protections as freedom of speech, freedom of the
press, freedom of religion, protection against self-incrimination in criminal cases. In analysis, many claim that in the UK the central government has sought, and seeks, to undermine the rule of law. For example in 2013, GCHQ received considerable media attention when the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the agency was in the process of collecting all online and phone data which violated the right to privacy under the rule of law.
In further analysis, the bill of rights and rule of law again differ due to the fact of the bill of
rights being written and codified whereas the rule of law is unwritten and uncodified.
Contemporary critics of the concept of the rule of law argue that it has been rendered virtually
meaningless in modern Britain.
They argue that because of the unwritten and flexible nature of the constitution, the rule of law can be easily ignored by the central government and therefore the rights and liberties of the people are weakened. In contrast the US’s bill of rights which are all written on the one document are there for the American people to constantly be reminded of and exercised at any time.
Overall, it is clear that the constitutions of both the UK and USA go some way on protecting the
individual rights of citizens although there are clear differences in the constitutions, legislation The
UK constitutions is based on the rule of law, with the US being based on the bill of rights.
In the UK, The Constitutions is considered to be confusing and hard for citizens to understand as it is not written down in one single document and is uncodified whereas the US constitution is easy to
access as it is codified and written in one document, allowing citizens to know their rights. We can
also see that laws can be changed in the UK, making it flexible and adaptable, whereas the US
constitution is not flexible and usually can’t be changed.
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