Does the UK need a written constitution?

By Makhsudul Islam

Every organised state has a constitution, the purpose of which is to act as a legal framework against which those that govern us could be held accountable for, the rationale behind a constitution is to limit the power of those above us and if necessary protect the citizen from dictatorship. It is there to protect us from the government acting in an arbitrary manner. They must also act according to the law of the land and not persecute a citizen without a valid reason. But in a state that has the sovereignty of European Parliament hanging over its head via the enactment of the Human Rights Act 1998 – is it necessary to have a written constitution?

The concept of having a written constitution is rather an attractive one; it allows the government to have in place a ‘book of laws’ which allows the lay person to know exactly what their rights are and what the government are capable of doing. Every single country apart from the UK, New Zealand and Israel has written documents that display the constitution. The advantages of having a written constitution are that they form a rigid set of laws which are very difficult if not impossible to change; it would require a massive majority to create a change in the constitution. It would prevent irregular changes and uphold the values that have been rooted in a country for many years.

If the flip side of the coin is looked at, one can see that an unwritten constitution is a much more attractive document for a government to hold than a written one. The best example is the UK, it is one of the greatest constitutions in the world because it upholds the values of the past as well as those from the present, it changes with needs and necessities, it realises the problems of the present and prevents the ideals from the past causing injustice. It allows for social changes and in turn with it, the shifting values, it is an ‘open-minded’ constitution willing to change whenever required.

However, the crucial point which points to the direction that the UK does not need a written constitution is the fact that the ECHR is a sovereign being. The ECHR governs and regulates the constitution of each European country using the conventions on human rights. The UK incorporated those conventions via the Human Rights Act 1998, so that it becomes the law of the UK and follows in the footsteps of other European countries. The European Communities Act 1972 and the Factortame case, has made it law for the UK to follow the European Parliament. Having a written constitution would distort this hierarchy that had been formed over many years, as it is the constitution that would become the sovereign being and not the ECHR. It is better to have a body that would scrutinise the legal framework of a country than a document produced by the country itself, which does not eliminate the threat of dictatorship; hence it has to be admitted that the UK does not need a written constitution but preserve the one it already adheres to.