[graemep]

Its not that simple.

There is a body of constitutional law. There is extensive law governing what powers ministers have - powers are granted to them by legislation.

There are human rights granted by law and treaty. Everything from some clauses of the Magna Carta that are still in force https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofp... to the European Convention on Human Rights.

[philwelch]

And thanks to parliamentary supremacy any and all of those protections can be repealed by a simple majority of the House of Commons.

[graemep]

True, but that is a long way from how I read the comment I replied too

[philwelch]

In countries that actually have a strong constitution—the US is the primary example though I hope others exist—the Constitution itself is the supreme law of the land and is, by design, difficult to amend. When legislatures pass laws that exceed the bounds of the Constitution, the courts strike down those laws as null and void.

In that sense, Britain does not have a constitution. Obviously it has a constitution in some sense, because there is always some set of laws, norms, traditions, and historical precedents that constitute the basis of government. But this is a much weaker sense of the term. For instance, the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 was a “constitutional” law that supposedly made it impossible to call a snap election, but a snap election was nonetheless called in 2019 via the Early Parliamentary General Election Act 2019, which only required a simple majority because it had equivalent authority to the FTPA itself.

[foldr]

I'm not sure the US is currently a particularly great advertisment for its model of constitutional government. In place of acts of Parliament that have a relatively clear interpretation (and that can be undone or modified by elected representatives), there is legislative deadlock and an endless series of judicial séances attempting to determine whether or not Ben Franklin would have supported gay marriage, abortion rights and concealed carry of MANPADS if he'd been born 300 years later.

[graemep]

Do they try to establish intent?

It is very odd that after 200 years of independence they realised that they had failed to realised that the constitution granted a right to have an abortion, and then a few decades later realised that it did not after all.

It feels very much that you have a different arm of the government (the judiciary) making laws in place of the legislature.

Historically it also took a while to get the thirteenth amendment so the constitution was pretty seriously flawed for a very long time.

On the other hand the free speech protections are something I envy.

[philwelch]

> Do they try to establish intent?

No. Originalism is just a form of textualism; it’s based on the “original public meaning” of the law as written. This is a common misunderstanding. The point of originalism is that you can’t interpret a law written in the 18th century as if it was written in the 21st century because language usage changes over time. There’s no good faith reason for it to be the sort of bogeyman it’s become.

[callamdelaney]

Laws are loosely written to effectively apply to anything and are interpreted by the courts. Sentences are subjectively and unevenly applied depending on the 'circumstances' of the offender.

[philwelch]

> Laws are loosely written to effectively apply to anything and are interpreted by the courts.

This is called "English common law" and it is a feature American law shares with many other English-speaking countries.

[tengwar2]

No, in that sense the UK does not have an American-style constitution - no more, no less. It is not accidental that Parliament can reverse any decision taken by an earlier Parliament: in fact it is one of the most important parts of the constitution that no Parliament can take a decision which binds a later one. It is different from the American design, yes, but the way in which the American constitution is used does not seem praiseworthy, not does it suggest that it would be wise to copy it.

[philwelch]

The Bill of Rights begins with the words, "Congress shall make no law..." before enumerating some of the basic human rights that Congress is constitutionally prohibited from infringing. I think it is highly praiseworthy indeed that, unlike Parliament, Congress is constitutionally prevented from infringing on basic human rights. It is also highly praiseworthy that, unlike Parliament, Congress is constitutionally prevented from forming a kangaroo court to sentence the head of state to death or from subsequently installing a military dictatorship (which is the exact historical precedent whence parliamentary supremacy was established).

[tengwar2]

And how's that going for you at the moment? You have a supreme court which has just decided that the president is effectively outside the reach of the law. This was in response to a case where the outgoing president attempted to overthrow the results of an election and establish a dictatorship.

As for the trial of Charles I - that was anything but a kangaroo court. Great care was taken to give him a fair trial, while establishing the principle that no-one was above the law.

[lesuorac]

> When legislatures pass laws that exceed the bounds of the Constitution, the courts strike down those laws as null and void.

Well, that's not actually in the US constitution.

And, the Executive branch is free to ignore what the Judicial branch [1] does since ya know, it's the Executive branch that would execute any decisions.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee_Nation_v._Georgia#Aft...

[philwelch]

> Well, that's not actually in the US constitution.

It's a rather simple application of the premises that (a) the Constitution supersedes other statutory laws and (b) the courts have jurisdiction over disputes about the application of the law.

[callamdelaney]

I'd like to take this moment to thank the European Union for our human rights /s

[foldr]

No /s required. You can see a list of landmark judgments here, some of which apply to the UK. (Although you’re confusing the EU with the Council of Europe.)

https://www.coe.int/en/web/human-rights-convention/landmark-...

[dbdr]

Patrick Stewart sketch: what has the ECHR ever done for us?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptfmAY6M6aA

[callamdelaney]

So now we need a council of Europe referendum?

As you know human rights existed long before somebody decided to sign away our interpretation of them to a foreign body.

Weird how the right to liberty and security doesn't apply to native populations.