THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION

KEY STATUTES AND CONVENTIONS

PARLIAMENT ACTS

EMERGENCY POWERS ACT 1964

THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION

Definition

• The English Constitution is a book written in 1867 by Walter Bagehot

• The book became a standard work which was translated into several languages

• Bagehot explores the functioning of Parliament and the British monarchy and the contrasts between British and American government.

Characteristics

1) It defined the rights and role of a monarch vis-à-vis, a government as three-fold:

• The right to be consulted• The right to advise• The right to warn

2) The constitution is organized into two components: • the Dignified (that symbolic part)• the Efficient (the way things actually work and get done).

English and American system compared by Bagehot

• “A parliamentary system (England) educates the public, while a presidential system (America) corrupts it.”

• British Constitution: principle of choosing a single sovereign authority, and making it good

• American Constitution: principle of having many sovereing authorities, hoping that many of them may atone for their inferiority. Having many authorities is still in act only because of American’s reguard for law and for their “genius for politics”.

KEY STATUTES AND CONVENTIONS

Some key statutes

• Magna Charta• Habeas Corpus Act 1679• Bill of rights 1689• Representation of the people Act 1918• Irish free state Constitution Act 1922• Representation of the People Act 1949• European Communities Act 1979• Freedom of Information Act 2000

Magna Charta

• The first document forced into an English King by a group of his subjects (the barons) in an attempt to limit his powers by law and protect their privileges

• English legal charter, originally issued in the year 1215

• Written in Latin

• Preceded by the 1100 Charter of Liberties in which King Henry I voluntarily stated what his own powers were under the law

Habeas Corpus Act 1679

Act of the Parliament of England passed during the reign of King Charles II to define and strengthen the ancient prerogative writ of habeas corpus, where by persons unlawfully detained can be ordered to be prosecuted before a court of law.

Bill of rights 1689

• Formal name: Act Declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject and Settling the Succession of the Crown.

• The Bill of Rights of the United Kingdom is largely a statement of certain rights to which citizens and permanent residents of a constitutional monarchy were thought to be entitled in the late 17th century, asserting subjects' right to petition the monarch, as well as to bear arms in defence.

Representation of the people Act 1918

• Reformed the electoral system in the United Kingdom. It is sometimes known as the Fourth Reform Act.

• Abolished practically all property qualifications for men and enfranchised women over 30 who met minimum property qualifications. The enfranchisement of this latter group was accepted as recognition of the contribution made by women defence workers. However, women were still not politically equal to men (who could vote from the age of 21); full electoral equality wouldn't occur until the Representation of the People Act 1928.

Irish free state Constitution Act 1922

• Preamble made up by five clauses, three of which are very brief, and two schedules.

• Introduced by the Prime Minister Lloyd George in the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

• The Preamble bases the Constitution on the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 6 December 1921.

Representation of the People Act 1949

• It prohibited those attending top universities (such as Oxford and Cambridge) from voting for a university MP and essentially ceased the practice of plural voting.

• Those on the UK electoral register were only allowed to vote once, and to vote in one constituency in any general election, and thus vote only once, even if for some reasons they were registered in more than one.

European Communities Act 1972

• Provides the incorporation of European Community law into the domestic legal order of the United Kingdom.

• It is not to be confused with the European Communities Act 1972 (Ireland) which did the same thing for the Republic of Ireland.

Freedom of Information Act 2000

• Implementation of freedom of information legislation in the United Kingdom on a national level.

• Introduces a public "right to know" in relation to public bodies.

• Implements a manifesto commitment of the Labour Party in the 1997 general election.

• The full provisions of the act came into force on 1 January 2005.

PARLIAMENT ACTS

The Parliament Acts are two Acts ofParliament of the United Kingdom, passed in 1911

and 1949

Parliament Act 1911

• Asserted the supremacy of the House of Commons by limiting the legislation-blocking powers of the House of Lords

• Amended the Septennial Act to reduce the maximum life of a Parliament from seven to five years

Parliament Act 1949

• Limited the power of the Lords by reducing the time that they could delay bills, from two years to one

Parliament Act 1911

The purpose of the Parliament Act 1911 is explained by its long title:

“ An Act to make provision with respect to the powers of the House of Lords in relation to those of the House of Commons, and to limit the duration of Parliament”

Parliament Act 1949

• Drown up by the Labour government of Clement Attlee afraid that their programm of nationalisation would be delayed by the Lord;

• Born from the Parliament Act 1911 to reduce the power of the Lords;• The amended Parliament Act was never used in the 1940s or 1950s

Validity of the 1949 Act

Since the 1949 Act became law, doubts were raised by legal academics as to whether the use of the 1911 Act to pass the 1949 Act, which amended the 1911 Act itself, was valid.

Three main concerns

• The continued ability of the House of Lords to veto a bill to prolong the life of Parliament would not be entrenched if the 1911 Act could be used to amend itself first, removing this restriction.

• The 1949 Act could be considered to be secondary legislation, since it depended for its validity on another Act.

• Under the 1911 Act, Parliament delegated its ability to pass legislation to another body (the Commons alone).

Use of the Parliament Acts

• Welsh Church Act 1914, under which the Welsh part of the Church of England was disestablished in 1920, becoming the Church in Wales.

• Home Rule Act 1914, which would have established a Home Rule government in Ireland; its implementation was blocked due to the First World War.

• War Crimes Act 1991, extended jurisdiction of UK courts to acts committed on behalf of Nazi Germany during the Second World War.

• European Parliamentary Elections Act 1999, changed the system of elections to a form of proportional representation.

• Sexual Offences Act 2000, equalised the age of consent for male homosexual sexual activities with that for heterosexual and female homosexual sexual activities at 16.

• Hunting Act 2004, prohibited hare coursing and all hunting of wild mammals, especially foxes, with dogs after early 2005.

Life Peerages Act 1958

• Life peers: barons and are members of the House of Lords for life. Their titles and membership are not inherited by their children;

• The Act established the modern standards for the creation of life peers by the monarch of the United Kingdom;

• Increased the ability of the Prime Minister to change the composition of the House of Lords;

• The Act allowed for the creation of female peers; the first such women peers sat in the House of Lords from 21 October 1958.

EMERGENCY POWERS ACT 1964

What is it?

The Emergency Powers Act 1964 was an Act of the United Kingdom to amend the Emergency Powers Act 1920 and made permanent the Defence (Armed Forces) Regulations 1939. Section I of this Act did not apply to Northern Ireland.

History• Section 2 of this Act amended the Defence (Armed Forces)

Regulations 1939 which allowed soldiers 'temporary employment in agricultural work or in other work, being urgent work of national importance' by making this permanent.

• As a result of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 only Section 2 of this Act remains on the statute book.

• In 2004, the Joint Committee of the House of Commons and the House of Lords named this Act a 'fundamental part of the constitutional law' of the UK.

• Cester Giulia

• Cozzolino Mirta

• Rossetti Federica