LEGAL ISSUES

Legal Issues

Legal Issues

Part A

Question 1

As a constitutional monarchy in which the principal revolutions occurred before the modern age of written declarations and constitutions, the British lack a written constitution. The 17th-century revolutions, notably the Glorious Revolution of 1688, ushered in the modern era of liberal-democratic and representative democracy in the United Kingdom in a way that modified the power of feudal institutions, such as the monarchy, the House of Lords, and the common law system, without supplanting them altogether. Thus, there has been no formal written statement to usher in a new order. Following the Glorious Revolution, the authority of the crown was retained on the understanding that parliament would henceforth be supreme.

The old order never died, it just faded away to some extent. The contemporary constitution in the United Kingdom is grounded in a series of constitutional conventions. These conventions are commonly agreed-upon understandings that the constitution will be interpreted in certain ways and that key governmental actors will act in certain ways. Conventions are not legal agreements and have no force in law. Despite this, they are essential to the smooth functioning of the British constitution. A core constitutional convention is at the heart of the British constitution: that despite the formal constitutional authority of the crown, the “royal prerogative” will be used sparingly and in a restrained manner, leaving substantive policy decisions to the elected executive of the prime minister and cabinet (themselves entities only known through convention) and the parliament.

The authority of the “crown in parliament”—in practice, the prime minister and his government—is the basis of parliamentary or statute law, which is a further key element of the British constitution. Apart from conventions, the royal prerogative, and statute laws, the most important element of the British constitution is the accumulation of common law through centuries of court decisions in specific legal cases. The common law incorporates certain historically important precedents such as the writ of habeas corpus and the Magna Carta of 1215, which between them establish the basis of the Rule of Law. The principles of justice contained in the Rule of Law ensure that the law is applied in a manner that is fair, open, consistent, and equal. Since the 1970s, the British constitution incorporates elements of European law, notably as British law relates to Europe and also with respect to European human rights legislation.

Question 2

As with collective responsibility, there are two aspects to this concept. The first is that a minister is expected to conduct him or herself in an appropriate manner. Any financial or sexual misconduct may lead to demands for resignation. You should be able to cite examples of where such conduct has led to resignations. The second aspect is that a minister is accountable to Parliament for the management of his or her government department. It used to be the case that any serious failures in policy or administration would result in a minister's resignation. However, the position is nowadays by no means ...