Should the UK have a codified constitution?

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Should the UK have a codified constitution?

A constitution is a set of rules that establishes how political power should be distributed, the relationship between political institutions, the limits to government, the rights of citizens and how the constitution can be changed. In the UK, we have an un-codified constitution; this means that it is not written down on one single document. However, recently more and more people have become in favour of codifying the constitution. There are many arguments justifying the employment of a codified constitution in the UK, but the most important are to limit the executive and legislative powers, entrench the constitution to protect the people and to modernize the UK politically compared to all other modern democracies that have a codified constitution.

In the 21st century, most democracies have a codified constitution with the exception of the UK, New Zealand, Israel and Saudi Arabia. This brings in to question how relevant and up to date the UK’s political system is. Currently, the constitution has evolved through conventions and changes to the law by parliament. Supporters of an un-codified constitution argue that the system works well using the current system which has been used for centuries, causing no problems. Another argument is the difficulties of codifying the British constitution, some of the problems that may incur may involve who, how and what should be in the constitution. The benefits of codification are just not worth the time and cost.

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However an important benefit of codifying the constitution is the existence of entrenchment, which would protect it from any changes unless it has support and in the long-term interest of the country. This would protect British citizens from dictatorship, which many could argue, is in place now. Parliamentary sovereignty defines the politics of the UK; any laws passed are in effect, changes to the constitution. Until the creation of the coalition in May 2010, most governments were the majority party in parliament, this created a system of elective dictatorship where most bills the government put forward in the House of ...

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