Constitution Smonstitution. Much the U.S. Constitutional Principles were derived from the British system, which does not have a formal written constitution. Your assignment, due 1/28 will be to creatively chart the comparisions and contrasting principles and Rule of Law and instituions of the two leading, and longest surviving constitutional democracies in the world.
For example,
US Constitutional Principle -- Federalism, the shared power between national and
state and local governments.
UK Constitutional Principle -- Devolution, the transfer of Whitehall powers in areas like education and health - but not, for example, defence - to the UK's nations and regions.
Does a State need to have a written constitution to follow Rule of Law?Use the following for help in your research:
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Governmentcitizensandrights/UKgovernment/Centralgovernmentandthemonarchy/DG_073438
http://www2.rgu.ac.uk/publicpolicy/introduction/wstate.htm
2 comments:
Just as an FYI: some of the US principles overlap with UK principles.
With devolution, there are four national governments in the UK:
-England (Parliament at Westminster)
-Wales (National Assembly for Wales / Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru)
-Scotland (Scottish Parliament / Pàrlamaid na h-Alba)
-Northern Ireland (Stormont; Northern Ireland Assembly / Tionól Thuaisceart Éireann)
Each of these National Governments have differnet amounts of devolution, (ie there is more powers devolved to Scotland and Wales then to Northern Ireland)
While the Scottish (SNP) and Welsh (Plaid Cymru) nationalist parties do take up their seats in Westminster, Sinn Féin refuses to do so for political reasons and thus NI is left with a completely unionist representation in Westminster. However, Sinn Féin do take their seats at Stormont.
Also, while Labour Party, Tories, and LibDems are present in Scotland and Wales, all of NIreland's political parties are local
This is all quite interesting. While the basis of democracy is the same, from there there are a lot of differences. I find it interesting that they regard their judges to be something apart from government.
On a somewhat unrelated note, I found out the Britain doesn't just have gun control, Britain has weapon control ("A person may be convicted of knife crime if they are in possession of any dangerous tool, like a screwdriver, if they do not have a good reason for possessing it. This applies to objects that are not knife-like, such as cricket bats, tubes of metal, etc.").
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