Is the Uks Constituition Becoming Increasingly Codified
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Submitted By sademajek Words 845 Pages 4
The British constitution has become increasingly codified, discuss.
A constitution is a set of rules that defines the manner a country is run. The British constitution is said to be an unwritten constitution, more accurately it is uncodified as much more of the British constitution is written down, however, they are not all written down in a single document like a codified constitution would require as how the US is, however draws from several different sources such as; statutes laws, common law, conventions, EU laws, authoritative documents etc. Statute law, is a written law passed down by parliament for example the human rights act of 1998 which brought the European convention on human rights into British law, conventions is another source of the British constitution, they are unwritten laws considered binding on members of the political community for example the Salisbury convention which made sure that the house of lords does not obstruct proposals contained in the governments most recent manifesto.
Has the British constitution become increasingly codified? Its not the case that the British constitution is being written in a single document but in fact that more of the constitution is being written down as there is increasingly more written statutes that have great constitutional impacts as they are passed by parliament making them more rigid therefore harder to change as parliament has ultimate sovereignty, however you could say the EU laws are exempt from this, the significant examples of statute law with great constitutional impacts are such as the The Human Rights Act [1998]which was put in place under Tony Blair, the Human Rights Act enshrined into constitutional law basic human rights that appear as articles of the European Convention of Human Rights, However does allow for changes to be made by the government to these terms. The Act's terms