Submitted 3 weeks ago by SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml to [deleted]
From a perspective of how hard it is to subdue
It’s pretty good.
But any legal document can be subverted by ill-intentioned actors. The issue with most legal and governmental systems is their presumption of good faith following of the rules they outline.
You can also see this often in stuff like non-profit or aid/assistance orgs getting perverted by bad leaders who distort the orgs founding goals for their own benefit.
UK:
You’d think this would be playing with fire but the fact that it has managed to last this long makes you question a lot of the assumptions that people usually use to justify hard constitutions.
It would seem that checks in the UK system do exist, but just weren’t explicitly designed and aren’t written into law anywhere:
It’s probably worth mentioning that this doesn’t just stop at legislation. A lot of things in the UK are the way they are, just because that’s the way they’ve always been.
What’s the official flag of the UK? It doesn’t have one. The Union Jack was a naval flag that became our defacto national flag. Before WW1, people could have lived their entire life without seeing a Union Jack.
What’s the official national anthem of the UK? It doesn’t have one. God save the King / Queen is our defacto national anthem. It was a song that gained popularity and people adopted it unofficially.
OK then. What’s the official language of the UK? You probably guessed - it doesn’t have one. English is only the defacto language of the UK. In fact, the only official language anywhere in the UK is Welsh, in Wales (obviously), where the vast majority of people speak English as their first language anyway.
No constitution, no hard checks and balances
I’m an American, but IIRC, the UK does have an unwritten constitution, one that incorporates all the landmark legislation over a millennium. That is to say, rather than a dedicated, singular document that “constitutes” the boundary of the law, the British look to their still-active laws to ascertain what core rights and responsibilities must exist, and extrapolate from there. If this sounds wishy-washy, it’s remarkably no different to how the USA Constitution is interpreted, under the “living document” doctrine. That doctrine in American law simultaneous recognizes that: 1) the exact text of the constitutional provisions must be adhered to (this is a basic tenant of “rule of law”, and 2) those provisions may extend to analogous situations. Right-wing conservatives over here attempt to ignore the second, adopting the so-called doctrine of “textualism” (which would only recognize strictly the first aspect) but this “doctrine” only seems to be cited out when it’s convenient, and hand-waved away when it’s not. Hardly a doctrinal approach.
As an example of what is universally understood as being part of the British constitution, see the Magna Carta. Many of its provisions might no longer be part of the formal British body of law, but were translated into formal statute law, with its lineage acknowledged when it comes up in civil rights litigation. The current status makes the Magna Carta more akin to the US Declaration of Independence, which formally grants or recognizes zero rights but is still important in American constitutional jurisprudence. In that sense, the Declaration of Independence is a part of the unwritten body of the American constitution.
As for checks and balances, since the UK adopts the notion of parliamentary supremacy – and still does, even after the creation of the UK Supreme Court in the 21st Century – the checks exist within the Westminster parliamentary system. As currently formulated, the UK Parliament is composed of a lower and upper house, with the former seating representatives of the people and the latter seating representatives of … nobility? The church? I’ll just say that the House of Lords represents the “establishment”. Not like “deep state capital-E Establishment” but just the institutions at-large. In that sense, the check-and-balance is one where the populist will is anchored by institutional momentum.
Is this alright? Personally – and again, I’m an American, not a UK citizen – it does seem rather backwards that the PM can advise the Monarch to create and appoint more hereditary peers in the House of Lords, which could stack parliament against the interest of the citizenry. I think the existence of bicameral legislative bodies to be an anachronism, especially in the USA where both end up being population-based (because prior court rulings ruled that land-based representation was unconstitutional, except the US Senate). The Nebraska unicameral legislature shows what can be done when the law-making process (committees, 1st reading, 2nd reading, floor vote, etc…) is consolidated, where testimony doesn’t have to be taken twice and citizens need only voice public comment at one committee.
But I digress.
No guarantee of stability, a new govt can repeal any of the previous govt’s laws
Yes, and no. The UK has a very rich tradition of inking out their party platforms, to the point that when a new government and party are in power, it’s not at all a surprise what laws they will change. Indeed, it would have been obvious for months to years, since the minority party forms the “shadow government”, which is basically a demo to the citizens about what the government would look like if they were in power. Note to fellow Americans: “shadow” in this case does not mean nefarious, but rather that each designated person from the minority will “shadow” the actual minister (eg Dept for Transport) and thus go on TV to give interviews about how the minority party would have done things differently. If a journalist needs to fill airtime with multiple points-of-view, going to the shadow minister on that topic is a quick way to get an opposing perspective.
The only question then, in terms of stability, is which party prevails after an election. In this sense, while there may not be absolute continuity, there is still practical continuity: businesses and individuals can make plans in advance when they learn what’s in the platform of the minority party, can start actioning those plans if the party has a likelihood of winning an election, can brace for change if a close election is called, and ultimately be ready for when the new party takes power and implements their changes. It’s a pragmatic approach: change is the only constant, so might as well give sufficient notice when things do change.
As for repealing “any” prior law, technically yes. But the institutional inertia is partially what blunts this power. Public advocacy organizations are – to this American – seemingly more transparent in their operations, and astroturfing is less an issue because of open-transparency when it comes to forming a legal company at Companies House. Likewise, the interests of businesses, the Church of England, the universities, workers unions, etc all find representation somewhere. So it’s much harder than, say in the USA, to ignore whole segments of the population to make sweeping changes.
Good point about the Prime Minister as well- if one is bad their party can just get rid of them without a beurocratic judicial process. Heck, their constituency can even make a recall petition to overthrow them
Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms would get a zero. There’s the “Notwithstanding Clause” that effectively nullifies the entire document at the discretion of any provincial government that wants to violate the Charter. The entire thing is basically meaningless with that loophole in place.
The notwithstanding clause can’t negate any part of the constitution, but that is a distinction without a difference. That said, it does make it easy to call any politician who uses it a slimy piece of shit and have something to refer to for why you believe that. Not that I would ever call a politician a slimy piece of shit - our slander laws in Canada do not have a clause to use the truth as a defense.
True, but…it can be used to negate all of your personal freedoms and legal rights, so…close enough.
Yes, Canada’s Notwithstanding clauses have also seemed like stupidity to me. That said, democracy with even a toothless constitution seems to be possible, if you look at the UK. I guess the question is whether Canada has the same political environment that has made it work in the UK for so long
Their assessment of the charter of rights and freedoms is nonsense.
We have one of the stronger constitutions in the world, one that actually provides positive rights for it’s citizens, not just negative ones
I.e. American rights are all framed as the government not doing something to you, Canadian rights also include ones that force the government to do things for you.
The notwithstanding clause is problematic, but it is not the death knell that post is making it out to be.
US:
Honestly I think that if you removed these two hurdles, the rest of the problems would sort themselves out. IMO a very strong point of the US constitution is the strong federalism that it has, making it hard for someone to centralize all power in the country, however hard they might be trying right now.
The one other main weak point I can think of is:
Lowering the threshold for amendments would actually weaken the Constitution, not make it stronger.
Imagine if they just kept flip-flopping back and forth on abortion or citizenship status every 8 years, at a Constitutional level. Every federal rule and regulation that Congress tried to implement based on current law, would have to be renegotiated every time an amendment was altered. The federal government would be locked into a permanent state of revisement, and literally nothing else would get done, as long as those basic issues remained permanently unsettled. Not to mention, people’s lives would be constantly fluctuating between opposing statuses.
The harder it is to make amendments to the law, the more stable the society becomes. Once something is codified into the Constitution, it should be extremely difficult to reverse. 2/3rds is actually a very reasonable majority under the circumstances. Less would be too easy…and more would be virtually unachievable.
Oh I see, 2/3 isn’t that bad. I was under the impression it required 3/4 of all states – but that’s the alternate method, right?
On the other hand, Trump’s been busy trying to rule by decree. Being able to do that at all is an issue.
I still believe it’s a pretty good system that has generally held up well for a couple hundred years.
It’s in tatters right now as all three branches are being run by power hungry sociopaths. Yet The people who run those branches at lower levels are still trying to do their jobs. There are still checks and balances. There is still hope our partly capsized ship will right itself. Authoritarianism required collusion across the heads of all three branches, yet each branch is still partly functioning
Yes, I have a feeling your democracy will ultimately prevail, purely by virtue of how used the general population is to freedom
Hungary:
As you can see, the Hungarian system has a single point of failure. It is then no surprise that when Viktor Orban’s party won the 2010 election, where was practically no stopping them going on from there
The UK is pretty good. I like a constitutional monarchy. I think it’s good that the guy with all of the power is just some dude who changes every few decades and didn’t try and fight and scam his way to the top like in some presidential democracies
Yes, I think the knowledge that they will never get to be Top Dog – however many boots they lick – must act as quite a good psychological deterrent against wannabe aithoritarians like BoJo or Liz Truss
I don’t think the republicans (typically left leaning) realise that if we became a presidential democracy, the likes of Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage would be top contenders for Head of State. I’d prefer a environmentalist nepo-baby who just wants to do his best in a funny hat any day
Italy:
Government needs confidence of both chambers at once
Wtf how do you guys manage to have any kind of stable government?
As I understand it from there, it’s the government that works, but the PMs that can get dismissed often. Unfortunately, the right-wing populists like to stay over time.
Looks cool…
problematic when you look deeper at the possible shenanigans that could arise out of it…
feels like a 1st grader scribble when you look at real world practices… unserious af… only works half of the time… nobody really care about it… or alternatively its a highschool where the teacher walked out of the classroom for a bit… absolute chaos… only for them to intermittently step back in and tell the kids to stop fighting, then walks out and it starts fighting again…
(USA… ahem Electoral College ahem Winner Take All)
People’s Republic of China… yea this thing is a joke… CCP entrenched into the constitution Constitution does not exist in practice. “Freedom of Speech” written in there but you got a whole ass firewall lmfao
SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Czechia: IMO pretty durable
Here comes the clever part:
Abolishing democracy would requite breaking a Catch-22. All you need to govern is a majority in the lower house. Hence populist leaders only fight to gain majorities in the House. The Senate is powerless when it comes to everyday policy (it can be overruled) and only has teeth when it comes to blocking changes to the constitution. Most populist voters find the Senate pointless and hence do not go to vote in its elections. The only people who go to vote in Senate elections are those who understand its importance as a constitutional break. So the chamber self-filters an electorate that finds democracy important.