I question the notion that codified constitutions are adopted specifically as a means to protect political freedoms. I don’t think they work very well at that at all.
Constitutions become codified generally after revolutions, or after the fundamental collapse of the old order, or after independence. As there is nothing (or almost nothing) on which they can base government without leaving the whole field open to anarchy, it makes absolute sense to ‘codify’ - in other words, to lay out the power map.
If you already have the power map well known in the public domain and already working quite fine, there is absolutely no need to make one.
Britain is one of the few countries which has had no revolution, or has not had to fight for its independence from another power, therefore it has no codified constitution.
You are describing common law systems in a nutshell. Judicial Review of primary legislation in the US came about due to Marbury v Madison it was not something that was inevitable or explicit in the Constitution. On the same head, the concept that Courts cannot go against or strike down an Act of Parliament is something that developed in the 18th and 19th centuries, earlier in the 1600, the Lord Chief Justice (Coke) had declared that if a statute violated natural law, the courts would not enforce it. For all we know, that position could have easily become the default one and if the fears you expressed come to pass, it is not beyond the impossible that the Courts could do that again.
In the US, balance is enforced by constitutional mandate and the division of powers, in England and Wales, balance is delivered by organs which have the ability to guide, counsel warn and if necessary obstruct an uber powerful body.
Magna Carta isn’t a constitution, certainly not in the modern sense of the word. It was a statute which the monarch could have revoked at any time (and indeed most of it has since been revoked). Magna Carta and the (English) Bill of Rights were the genesis of individual rights being enshrined in law, but not of individual rights being enshrined in an overarching law.
Wait, what? England has had a civil war and a half-dozen wars of succession. Not to mention another dozen wars of secession involving bits of Britain.
Why isn’t the US government more despotic? The US constitution is just a piece of paper, and there’s no lack of countries around the world that are despotic despite having theorically democratic constitutions.
It just falls down on the American people culturally caring a lot about their constitution (in fact, I would say caring too much about it IMO). If tomorrow they all woken up not caring, the constitution would still exist and be in force, but it wouldn’t carry much weight. It doesn’t mean, however, that they also wouldn’t care any more about say, the right to free speech and that the POTUS could abolish it by decree.
It doesn’t matter much what is the source of the consensus, or its reference. What matters is that a consensus exists about how thing should get done and that deviating from this consensus isn’t normally politically conceivable.
Quite so, although if the year 1258 had panned out differently, a written constitution may have arisen under the Provisions of Oxford, or if not them, then the Provisions of Westminster of 1259. Or at least, the very, very beginnings of one.
Well, yes. I failed to put in the proviso of ‘in modern times’ the civil war brought down the monarchy and the House of Lords but with that exception was fairly conservative, constitutionally, having kept the House of Commons in place. And when the monarchy was restored, Parliament made absolutely no attempt to create a constitution for the new king, in effect allowing him to govern as his father did.
Even the Glorious Revolution of 1689 is not universally considered a revolution, because it in effect protected the existing constitution and did not draw up a new one. The Bill of Rights is just another Act of Parliament.
If, say, we’d had a revolution in the 1750s or later, I don’t doubt we’d have a written constitution now. But our political struggles largely (largely) settled by this point, and the big changes came through incrementally, not suddenly with revolution. Hence, no need for a written constitution.
As for secession, yes indeed - but the secession of these bits had miniscule effect on the government of the rest of Britain. Heck, even today, with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland having devolved Parliaments - Westminster itself has hardly noticed the difference!
Read the rest of my post about evolution etc. please.
Also, yes, Magna Carta could be revoked but so can parts or all of the US Constitution, in theory. As with any law or rule it only works because enough people would get seriously pissed off if someone tried to change it in ways the majority find unacceptable. But clearly, in both situations, it was considered “safe” enough. Besides, it was just an example to support the “evolution” point.
The difference is that bits of the US Constitution can’t be revoked by the same people that pass/revoke general laws. I don’t think we need to carry on this hijack, though; I feel my original point has been sufficiently clarified.
the civil war brought down the monarchy and the House of Lords but with that exception was fairly conservative, constitutionally, having kept the House of Commons in place. And when the monarchy was restored, Parliament made absolutely no attempt to create a constitution for the new king, in effect allowing him to govern as his father did.