What is sovereignty?

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James Ford

Politics: Constitutions

A.        What is sovereignty? (5)

B.        Where is sovereignty located in the UK? (15)

C.        Why has the UK’s uncodified constitution been criticised? (30)

A.

Sovereignty is the power usually ascribed to a country, to make decisions of government without the influence of external forces. It is the overall power that a group of people have or give over other or other groups, for example the queen has sovereignty due to the fact that she is the monarch.

B.

The extent of the UK’s sovereignty is of much debate. It is said that the monarch has political sovereignty; however this is not so in the UK anymore, the parliament and the party leader is almost completely in charge of the decisions that go on. The monarch may be called to sign a document however, but even if she does not do this the law would still be passed. Many say that she is purely there for the traditional purposes and this in my opinion is true, the queen has her authority from this and other forms of tradition. The EU affects sovereignty because the act of 1972 says that when there is a conflict between European and UK law the EU law takes priority.

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The European convention on human rights says that the European courts have supremacy over the UK laws. Abuses of human rights investigated by the European commission of human rights and referred to European Court of Human Rights for trial in Strasbourg, this means that the UK laws will have no say in the out come.

The purpose of the constitution is to distribute power within the political system, but with sovereignty the power is taken from the UK and given for example to the European Courts. This could mean that the limits of the government are not defined, or ...

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