[dataflow]

> I believe interpretation is a part of the definition of a constitution, you do not, we have different definitions, oh well.

You can't just brush it aside as some quibble about definitions. It's a fundamentally substantive difference in the two structures: one of these has an indisputable source of truth (a foundation everyone can witness) that everything else is built on top of -- however shakily! -- and the other does not. Regardless of whether you include the upper parts of this metaphorical building in your definitions or not, the foundations are not the same.

[ponkpanda]

> It's a fundamentally substantive difference in the two structures

Yes, it is a substantive difference but it does not follow that this difference provides the 'constitution' property.

> one of these has an indisputable source of truth... the foundations are not the same

They are so similar as to be almost the same and if an 'indisputable source of truth' exists anywhere, it is not in the written documents or their structure but unwritten norms and rituals sit beneath both.

What stops a President from simply choosing to ignore a Supreme Court ruling and what prevents the King from returning to personal rule?

The lack of arbitrary rule is a defining feature of both and relies on something that emerged rather than something imposed from without by written words.

[dataflow]

> What stops a President from simply choosing to ignore a Supreme Court ruling and what prevents the King from returning to personal rule?

Legally? The fact that everybody under the president -- including those in the military -- understand they are swearing their oath to the constitution -- not the King, not the Crown, not God, not the Supreme Court, not anything else. And that the Supreme Court says what the constitution means. And that if there is a clear and direct contradiction between the Supreme Court and the president, the former trumps (no pun intended) the latter.

Physically? "Nothing", yeah. Same goes for non-presidents. If you can get enough people to follow you (or maybe at least enough of the people with guns) everything else becomes irrelevant, including whether your title was president or King or God or Constitution or whatever.

> The lack of arbitrary rule is a defining feature of both

It is emphatically not. There are lots of countries with constitutions that nevertheless have arbitrary rule. As there are countries without constitutions or arbitrary rule.

> They are so similar as to be almost the same and if an 'indisputable source of truth' exists anywhere, it is not in the written documents or their structure but unwritten norms and rituals sit beneath both.

No, that's exactly what those are not. Unwritten stories, traditions, and rituals are very much disputable. That's kind of the entire point of writing things down, and the point of the game we call Telephone. The indisputable bits are physical artifacts everyone can see with their own eyes.

[ponkpanda]

> And that if there is a clear and direct contradiction between the Supreme Court and the president, the former trumps (no pun intended) the latter.

The extent to which members of the executive branch adhere to their oaths is not written down. Ofc the oath is written and its power may partly derive from its written nature (clear; predictable; well publicised etc) but there is a lot more than its written nature that might cause a general to refuse to follow a Presidential order to arrest all people suspected of voting for their opponent.

> The lack of arbitrary rule... is emphatically not [a defining feature of both]

I guess it depends on whether you (or most reasonable people) would call countries like Russia a 'constitutional republic'. Of course there are plenty of dysfunctional and dictatorial countries which superficially describe themselves as XYZ but it lacks substance.

While there may be a textbook answer, I strongly suspect it is debatable within the field and comes down (like so many things) to how you define your terms. Do you define 'constitutional' as attaching more to the codified and written nature of any rules or whether it is more to do with predictable and enforceable rules limiting arbitrary government. My view is that it attaches more the latter.

If you go into the etymology of the term, I don't think codification is baked in - that you can find a large number of books discussing the English or UK constitution (using that term) is testament to the fact that it's not just some niche view. I do suspect the influence of US popular culture (e.g. Hollywood) has biased the term towards the US' arrangement vs. the alternatives.

[dataflow]

> The extent to which members of the executive branch adhere to their oaths is not written down. Ofc the oath is written

So... it is written down...

Notice the president isn't even mentioned. [1] And it even says all enemies, foreign and domestic. The oath is 100% unambiguous and crystal clear that in the event that the president becomes an enemy of the constitution, you defend the constitution, not the president.

> but there is a lot more than its written nature

We're not playing no-true-Scotsman here, right? There are always going to be more factors both in favor and against such a position than any human can enumerate ahead of time. This in no way contradicts anything I wrote.

>>> definition of a constitution

>> The lack of arbitrary rule... is emphatically not [a defining feature]

> I guess it depends on whether you (or most reasonable people) would call countries like Russia a 'constitutional republic'

No, the fact that Russia has a constitution doesn't depend on what I (or most reasonable people) may call Russia or its form of government at all.

> I strongly suspect it is debatable within the field and comes down (like so many things) to how you define your terms.

Russia has a constitution, end of story. There's even a Wikipedia article on it! [2]

If you believe otherwise, just assert "Russia doesn't have a constitution" directly. No need to dive into the debate over whether "Russia is a constitutional republic" when Russia clearly has a constitution. Of course, you're not going to claim it doesn't have a constitution (otherwise you already would've), which... well, I rest my case.

> Do you define 'constitutional' as attaching more to the codified and written nature of any rules

I'm not defining "constitutional" (adjective), whose definition comes in conjunction with the noun following it. I am merely defining "constitution", which is a simple noun. Recall that the sentence I was originally replying to -- word for word -- was: "there is absolutely a Constitution in the UK." Not "the UK is a constitutional <noun>." That's all. The debate is not over anything that involves the <noun> following the word "constitutional". The dispute is over whether the UK has a constitution, and in that debate, it is indisputable that e.g. Russia indeed has a constitution, whether it is well-followed or not, or whether we like it or not.

I think what's becoming pretty clear that people just really desperately want to say the UK has a constitution regardless of how many contortions of the definition of "constitution" that requires, because... well, a constitution is a good thing, the UK sees its form of government as good, so of course it must have a good basis. (Global virtue-signaling, I guess?) Which I find ironic, because a good constitution-less government would be something to be proud of, not something embarrassing to avoid.

If this is hard to wrestle with, consider this: imagine a world where the UK was the same as it is today, but everything else was flipped. i.e. the US & every other country that has a constitution was suffering, and every other monarchy was flourishing. Do you really believe the experts "in the field" would still be arguing the UK has a constitution today, or would they just stick with calling it a monarchy and vehemently deny any constitution existing? It's pretty obvious to me the answer is the latter, but of course, I can't prove anything about an alternate timeline.

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/3331

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Russia

[howerj]

Yes, the foundations of the constitutions are not the same, one of them has a mostly codified constitution, the other has a mostly uncodified (uncodified but mostly written down, that is not a contradiction!) constitution. They both have constitutions however, so the phase "Britain has no constitution" is wrong. To be clear, I am not saying that is good or bad that Britain has an uncodified constitution, just that from my definition (and most political and legal definitions) of what a constitution is the phrase "Britain has no constitution" is wrong. Britain of course has laws, and laws about how new laws are made, etcetera. This forms a constitution.