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President of the United Kingdom Constitutional Law Association
(UKCLA)
Thank you very much and thank you to the institute for very kindly
inviting me to discuss the UK constitution and its democracy. I am hazing to
ask I don’t come today with some magic set of nostrum to solve the problems
in other countries, and I would think it rather important to..with me to do so.
But I do want to discuss the constitutional form of the UK constitution. Some
of which might indeed surprise you. You may also see some elements of
similarity, again, perhaps, unexpected at least in form. And I want to rather
than, as I say, give lessons or imagine lessons, address what are the challenges
that face the UK constitution. And what I think of some of its successes. So,
if elements of similarity or dissimilarity, I use that to your own experience to
infer or construct for yourself.
So, turning to the UK’s constitutional form, explanations of the United
Kingdom’s political system tend to start with the assertion that the United
Kingdom is a democracy. It is a democracy, but it is what I would call a hybrid
democracy. The overarching authority of the state is vested in the Crown. The
concept to the Crown, of course, related to the idea of the King. Indeed, to
this very day, the overall legal apparatus of government takes a form of a
medieval monarchy and it’s that fact, that legal fact, that I think might surprise
people. It certainly surprises people in the UK because most people are not
familiar with the history and legal structure of the state.
What has happened over a 300 year period is the slow transition from
government by the King to that of a constitutional monarchy. This evolution or…
I’d rather not use the word evolution because the word evolution implies
progress, that weak concept of history that’s ineluctable march of progress
where everything gets better. I would see it more of a transition. These
transitions leave the framework in place of the Crown. Strictly speaking, all the
powers of government are the legal powers of the Queen. This is in the United
Kingdom. But the Queen does not exercise those powers directly; she acts
through her ministers, who, in law, are servants of the Crown. And, indeed, that
has quite a lot of significance in terms of the ways in which… challenges the
government actions and decisions to take. That’s a question of the speciality
of public law. I won’t go into that. But it is not merely eternal phrase. It has ²£ ´£²¢¡¸¡¡Á¥°£°ª²£l²h²£°À¨
real legal consequence.
As the Queen is the Head of the State, she does have a significant role.
And I’d like to emphasize that because people in the UK imagine the Queen is
