Essay on Constitutional Law

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A Constitution is a whole system of government of a country and seen to be the collection of rules which establish and regulate or govern the government. It is also viewed to be the set of laws, rules and practices that create the basic institutions of the state. The UK adopts an unwritten, flexible, unitary constitution which is monarchical in nature. This means that there has never been an attempt to write down the rules of the constitution in a single document, instead rules are found through precedent and case law. The UK constitution is described to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. This means that our constitution does not flow from an event in history. Due to the unwritten constitution, it is very flexible which means that any element of the UK constitution can be changed through an ordinary act of parliament at any time. The UK constitution is also unitary which means that power may be decentralised, but this is entirely through ordinary legislation which can subsequently be withdrawn. The monarchical element of the UK constitution means that the Monarch is head of state, for example, Queen Elizabeth II who symbolises the nation.

The Sovereign have certain prerogative powers to exercise. However, with in the constitutional monarchy we find a set of conventions which limit the discretion of the sovereign so that his or her public acts are in reality those of ministers. The royal prerogative includes the powers to appoint and dismiss ministers, regulate the civil service, issue passports and to declare war, to name a few.. In present day laws, the Sovereign has a prerogative power to dismiss her Minster’s, either singly or in mass. However, this legal power is overlaid by convention, and in practice whether or not the Minister’s are dismissed is in the hands of the current Prime Minister. These principles are derived from the passing of the Reform Bill 1832 and since 1783; no British Sovereign has dismissed a Prime Minister. It is now seen to be unconstitutional for the Sovereign to dismiss the Prime Minister, unless in the most exceptional circumstances. If the Sovereign does decide to dismiss a minister and the dismissal is not supported by the public opinion, the monarchy could be placed in jeopardy.

The relationship between the sovereign and the Prime Minister is said to be “Bi-lateral”. By this we mean that both persons hold some principles of constitutional behaviour. If the Prime Minister steps outside of these principles, the Sovereign may respond by dismissing either them or their minister’s. There are an unwritten set of rules which have been accepted by parties and their leaders, if it was obvious that they were digressing from their rules, personal intervention by the Sovereign will be constitutionally justified.

To conclude, the constitutional right of Sovereign to dismiss Ministers of the Crown have been restricted in the present day in comparison to the past. The Sovereign has the prerogative powers to dismiss ministers, but it seems that in the present day there needs to be a valid justification towards such an act. This is illustrated when George III dismissed the North Fox coalition government in the 18th century. Now, as we are progressing in to the 21st century, it is seen to be
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