The advantages of an unwritten constitution far outweigh the disadvantages (40)
You must make a judgement.
A constitution is a set of rules that establish duties and functions of the government and defines the basic principles to which society must conform. In this essay I will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of an unwritten constitution and show that I agree with this statement.
On one hand, if a written constitution was introduced it would affect the power of government, relationship between judges and politician and individual freedoms and rights. One argument is that a written constitution would make the rules of the country clearer, as constitutional rules would be collected together and put into a single document and
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Unwritten constitutions are flexible as they are not entrenched, and flexibility is extremely important and useful as the modern day is constantly changing.
The strongest argument in favour of a written constitution is that it would protect the rights of its citizens and individual liberty would be more securely protected. The rights would become more clearly defined due to a written constitution and perhaps easier to enforce than an unwritten constitution because it is difficult to be completely sure of what your rights are, these rights can be defined through a bill of rights in the written constitution.
However, just because there is a written constitution does not ensure the rights of a countries citizens will receive their rights – rather, it could lead to an elective dictatorship which might further restrict rights and may go on to persecute some of its citizens, which happened in Germany and resulted in the Second World War.
Another disadvantage of a written constitution is that there may be tyranny within the judiciary. Judges are unelected and socially do not represent the population which could lead to a democratic deficit because of a lack of democratic legitimacy, as the public could be subjected to opinions which they do not agree with but have been implemented due to the preferences of senior judges.
On the other
Think of the word tyrant. Now just imagine that there was a simple and easy way to stop him or her. That’s what the constitution has done for the U.S.A. Our Constitution has protected us against tyranny since the day it was drafted. The constitution is an official document that was written in May 1787 in the city of Philadelphia Pennsylvania. The purpose of the constitution is to form a central federal government, to form a separation between federal and state rights, and to give personal liberties to its citizens.
The first way that the Constitution helped with the weaknesses of the United States were the different ways it made passing laws more fair. When amending a document the Articles of Confederation needed 13 out of 13 people to approve of the document. The Constitution provided a more reasonable way by having ⅔ of both houses and ¾ of the state legislature. This is a better method because not 100% of people are going to agree on everything. The same type of thing worked when passing laws. 9/13 people needed to approve in the Articles of Confederation while it’s now 50% +1 of both houses plus the signature of the President. This allows for things to be more fair and it makes sure everyone in power somewhat agrees on what is going on and not just a couple of people are deciding on what the citizens new laws will be.
The Constitution is our nation's most important and famous document and is the much more polished version of The Articles of Confederation, which were ultimately a disaster for our nation. The Constitution is a far better outline for our nation's government because it gives the central government the necessary powers to run the country efficiently without disregarding the rights of the citizens.
Imagine sitting in a room full of 54 other men in the summer with no air conditioning so your country can have a strong government with equal power. The constitution was written because the Articles of Confederation was to weak. They wanted to have a strong government but one that protected against tyranny. Tyranny is when one person or one group of people have more power than another person or group of people. The constitution guarded against tyranny with federalism, separation of powers, checks and balances, and congress.
The United States Constitution was an important document that changed history and a flexible document that could adapt to future challenges for many reasons. This important document replaced the Articles of Confederation, which had many problems from the beginning. Over time, the Constitution has also been amended to meet the challenges in the future.
The Constitution is a living, breathing document. It was recognized that each future generation would be facing new challenges that would have never occurred to the older ones, so it had the flexibility available by both interpretation and revisement to allow the newer generation to use the document as it was intended. As society and government grows, additions must be made to the Constitution to keep with the times. The Constitution is also governed by the thoughts of society at that time, seen in the implementation of the 18th amendment because of the urgings of religious and Women’s Suffrage movements. As it is also seen when the government grows weary of one president in office too long, seen in the creation of the 22nd amendment.
In this world there are many different constitutions. While many of them are long, they can be short. Many constitutions were written a long time ago, while some were just written recently or just a few years ago. The ones that were made a long time ago have even been passed down and changed for people to understand now. Even though all constitution have similarities, they all have differences between each other as well.
When people gather together for form a society, they will automatically need a fundamental law (constitution) that will be above everything and everyone. Constitution is what actually regulates a country. It provides rights and set up obligations for everyone. The United States constitution is one of the greatest documents ever written. It provides liberty, prosperity, equality, more importantly huge freedom. However, the ratification of the U.S. constitution was not an easy task. The farmers had trouble to agree on several issues such as the representation and distribution of political powers; how to prevent excessive democracy; and the protection of individual liberties, etc.
The U.S. Constitution is the document of the principles and system of the United States government. It covers the goals of the new government, the system and purpose of each branch, how the states will work, how to amend the constitution, the supremacy of the national government, and the process of ratification. The U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of America, that must be followed by everyone. The Constitution of the United States was established at the 1787 Constitutional Convention and signed in 1787. The Constitution is the structure of America, it tells us how everything will work in this nation of ours. Without the Constitution, there would not be any specified rules of how this country is set up and how it works. The Constitution makes us who we are today, it establishes our system of government, our rules of what we can and can’t do, what the government can do for the people, and how everything in America is set up.
The Constitution is a better document that protected the liberties of the citizens of America. The reason is that after review of the Articles we see a lot of issues with how they tried not to be like the British parliament but needed up similar to how they manage their government. Also other reasons it wasn’t a strong document was because it seem like an inexperience on certain subject as for example the Articles had no executive branch but in the constitution now there is an executive branch. The major reason I see that the constitution was good for the liberties were because of the check and balance proposal. Running a government, the constitution is a stronger document that hits every issue including liberties for citizens. For example, dispute between states; they issued that problem to Congress according to the Articles. In the
On the other hand a codified constitution would clarify the nature of the political system to its citizens. Currently in the UK the constitution is not easy to find which makes it difficult for the UKs citizens to learn the nature of the political system but also all the rights that as a citizen of the UK you should enjoy. For example in the USA the bill of rights is a part of their constitution and every citizen can gain access to these rights. In the USA the whole constitution is on one document and all citizens have access to it. This may make it easier for the UK as a whole to understand the British
An advantage of the UK constitution is that it takes into account of changing views. For example, in 1997 the changing of the hereditary peer system and also further reforms to change the structure of parliament. It is good that the British constitution will always takes into account these changes. However, there are disadvantages to an un-written constitution.
The executive can exercise significant control over the legislative process in the House of Commons. Therefore power is concentrated amongst representatives who have been democratically elected and have a mandate to govern in place of appointed judges or bureaucrats who cannot be held accountable. A codified constitution would place constraints on the government making it less decisive and therefore less strong because government would be reluctant to act in case it is seen as opposing the constitution.
What would life be like without the Constitution? Well eventually we would have a tyranny. This was something that the colonists were trying to avoid. What is tyranny? Tyranny is when a person has a lot of power in their hands, having complete control. The constitution was made to to help guard against things like tyranny. Some ways that the Constitution could guard us from tyranny are by dividing powers between the central and state governments, dividing powers between branches of government evenly, using checks and balances and lastly, in the Legislative Branch, there is equal representation from all the states.
A written constitution is precisely a charter that has been codified, in that the rules and regulations that citizens / individuals must abide by are stated in a single document format. Although elements of the UK constitution are written e.g. the statute law, sections of