> if you look its core document (Magna Carta, which is written in Latin)
I'm not sure it's fair to characterize Magna Carta as the core of the UK Constitution, especially since most of it has not been in force for centuries. It looks to me that the main thing it imparts to the constitution is the existence of something which eventually becomes Parliament. Instead, the core of the constitution is probably the English Bill of Rights.
We don't have a codified constitution, but we still have one; it's just made up of various written laws and unwritten things like conventions.
I agree that the system isn't particularly democratic though: the executive (Government) can pretty much do what it wants when it has a majority in the Commons and the relevant promises in its manifesto (to bypass the Salisbury Convention in the Lords).
> If there's just one British constitution and everyone agrees on it, then it seems like writing it down would be pretty trivial.
Honestly, a country can have a universally recognized and respected written constitution without "everyone agree[ing] on it." See United States of America, Constitution Of.
> UK and for which does not have a constitution that's being violated
I'm a Brit too. The idea that we don't have a constitution to be violated is ignorant nonsense.
It's true, we don't have a nice convenient piece of paper with 'The UK Constitution' at the top. The UK constitution is mostly common law (recorded in caselaw -- decisions by judges) with common law principles such as the rule of law and access to justice (e.g. ex p Withham), together with a bunch of 'constitutional statutes' (in the Metric Martyrs sense - e.g. the Bill of Rights, Acts of Union, and more recently the ECA, Human Rights Act, etc), constitutional conventions (written and unwritten), and international treaties (the EU treaty, the ECHR, etc.).
The UK has been ruling actions of the executive illegal under our constitution since longer than the US has existed. E.g. Entick v Carrington [1765], which was cited as the inspiration behind the fourth amendment.
If you want to learn more, try Peter Leyland's "The constitution of the United Kingdom".
> Britain does not have a written constitution but it is followed (how?)
Perhaps this is just a tacit admission that writing the rules on a piece of paper changes nothing. People follow the rules as a kind of collective consensus. Writing them down in one place wouldn’t change that.
> It has lasted longer than every other constitution for every other country.
No it hasn't. The oldest written national constitution in continuous effect is that of San Marino, from 1600 (unless you count some charters that usually aren't treated that way, like Magna Carta). And plenty of nations survive just fine with traditional rather than integrated written constitutions, which are something of a modern fad, which is why none of the longest continuous constitutional systems have a written constitution in the first place.
I don't think you're being fair to the British here. Their constitution, though not written as a single constitutional document, has at least parts that are written (most notably, the Magna Carta). The whole functions as something significantly more rigid than what a majority in Parliament decides.
Depends on your definitions. Great Britain has a "constitution" which is not a single, written document. The Magna Carta is part of it, and dated from 1215.
>Btw, Constitution is a law too. Should it have an expiry date too?
Yes? Why would one assume an 18th century framework should be preferred to one considering the modern world? Codifying our ideals seems like a better system than entrusting them to precedent.
The UK did and still does have a written constitution, it's just not entirely written, and what's written is spread across multiple documents--the Magna Carta being one of the obvious ones. The US is not that different. Much of the US Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, was copied verbatim from the written parts of the English constitution. And even conservative American jurists who reject Substantive Due Process regularly recognize unwritten constitutional rules and norms, especially those deriving from English constitutional norms.
Aside from federalism (where states maintained some sovereignty), the most fundamental constitutional differences between the US and the UK relate to judicial review and parliamentary supremacy. But it didn't become clear until 1803 in Marbury v. Madison that the US would follow a different path. If Congress was the final arbiter of legislative constitutionality (as many believed in 1789, and some conservatives argue to this day), there would be little if any functional difference between the US and UK constitutional systems. Indeed, now that US Senators are directly elected, but for Marbury v Madison even federalism would be little different than UK's so-called devolution. Japan nominally has judicial review, but their supreme court has zero inclination to strike down legislation so in practice the Japanese legislature has similar constitutional powers as the UK parliament.
I'm not sure it's fair to characterize Magna Carta as the core of the UK Constitution, especially since most of it has not been in force for centuries. It looks to me that the main thing it imparts to the constitution is the existence of something which eventually becomes Parliament. Instead, the core of the constitution is probably the English Bill of Rights.
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