Is a written constitution more democratic then an unwritten constitution

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Is A Written Constitution More Democratic Then An Unwritten Constitution?

A Constitution is a set of rules, laws and procedures that form the base for which government enforces them.

Hood Phillips describes a constitution as ‘the system of laws, customs and conventions which define the composition and powers of organs of the state, and regulate the relations of the various state organs to one another and to the private citizens.’ (Hood Phillips 1987; 5)

The majority of democratic countries have written constitutions, which means the constitutions is written on 1 single document. Only three nations have unwritten constitutions: Israel, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

This essay will explore which type of constitution is more democratic: unwritten or written. By comparing and contrasting the United Kingdom’s constitution with the United States of America’s written constitution I hope to gather enough evidence to build a conclusion

The United Kingdom is known as having an unwritten constitution but the majority of it is written in laws, statutes, legislation and more recently the European Union Law. To call the British constitution unwritten is not correct, it’s unwritten in the sense that it is not all collected on one single document. The constitution is written just uncodified.

Madgwick and Woodhouse argue that the British constitution ‘was never invented or designed but just grew, so that political facts became constitutional rules’ (Madgwick and Woodhouse 1995, pp 11, 18) Coxall and Robins (1998) argue that formal constitutions are extremely important because they entail all the ‘procedural rules of a political system.’ The constitution also acts as a reminder of political values and forms a limitation upon politicians and civil servants.

The United States of America has a written, codified constitution and has done so since after the American Revolution.

The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law; it builds the structure for the United States Government and appoints power within it; it’s the ‘source of legitimate governmental authority.’

The biggest advantage of having a codified constitution is its clarity. Written, codified constitutions allow citizens to be able to read them easier because they are laid out on one single document rather then many. You could argue that because it’s clearer citizens are more likely to read it and participate in politics more.

Codified constitutions are inflexible and harder to amend then uncodified constitutions. Leach, Coxall and Robins (2006) argue that a common feature of written constitutions is the ‘constitutional law has status of higher form of law’ which can only be amended by special procedure.

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Thus perhaps meaning America is less democratic because if citizens want a change they have to fight harder to achieve it.

The British uncodified constitution is flexible and can be amended easily, using the same process as for common law, ‘effectively by a simple majority in the House of Commons.’ (Coxall and Robins (1998))  

Kingdom (1999) argues that written constitutions are encouraged to resist change through their process of amendment. ‘Written constitutions are usually given a propensity to resist change; entrenched through deliberately cumbersome processes of amendment.’ 

Since the introduction of America’s constitution in 1787 there have ...

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