Issue 01
Constitutional Accountability
In briefA pathway into the constitutional argument, parliamentary sovereignty, executive powers and legal accountability.
01Today
Where things stand
- 01
Parliament is sovereign
Under the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty, Parliament can make or unmake any law, and no Parliament can bind its successors. There is no higher legal document against which an Act of Parliament can be tested.
- 02
Courts cannot strike down Acts
UK courts can review how ministers use their powers, but they cannot overturn primary legislation. Under the Human Rights Act 1998, the most a court can do is issue a declaration of incompatibility. The law stays in force unless Parliament chooses to act.
- 03
The executive sits inside the legislature
Ministers are drawn from the party or parties that command the confidence of the House of Commons. A government with a working majority can usually pass the legislation it wants, including laws that change the constitution itself.
- 04
Many powers rest on convention and prerogative
Key powers, such as treaty-making and the deployment of the armed forces, derive from the royal prerogative and are exercised by ministers. Much of how the system operates depends on conventions: political understandings rather than enforceable law.
02The alternative
What a codified constitution changes
In most democracies, a single constitutional document sits above ordinary law. That changes the balance of power in specific, practical ways:
The constitution can only be amended through a special procedure, often a supermajority, a referendum, or both, not by a simple Act.
Laws that conflict with the constitution can be challenged and set aside by the courts.
The powers of the executive, the legislature and the courts are written down and separated, rather than left to convention.
Office-holders are bound by a text that any citizen can read, cite and rely on.
03Position
TSP’s position
“No executive and parliamentary overreach. Just legally accountable public servants.”
TSP argues that accountability which depends on the restraint of those in power is not accountability at all. The movement’s proposal is a codified constitution, approved by the people in a nationwide referendum, that places elected representatives under the law as public servants.
Research on this issue
7 records- Parliamentary sovereigntyClosing Down the Circus: Why a 17th-Century Parliament is Destroying Our 21st-Century FuturePublished
- Constitutional designThe Architecture of Obsolescence: Why the United Kingdom Requires a Codified ConstitutionPublished
- Civic participationWhy 11 Million Plus Britons Have Withdrawn Their ConsentDraft
- Constitutional designThe Unwritten Shield vs. The Written ContractDraft
- Constitutional designThe Architecture of DiversionIn review
- Parliamentary sovereigntyElective DictatorshipDraft
- Civic participationThe Uni-Party SystemDraft
Doesn’t the UK already have a constitution?
It does, but it is uncodified. It is spread across statutes, court judgments, conventions and authoritative texts rather than collected in one supreme document, and almost all of it can be changed by an ordinary Act of Parliament.
Isn’t parliamentary sovereignty the same as democracy?
Parliamentary sovereignty means Parliament has the final legal word. TSP’s argument is that sovereignty should rest with the people, with Parliament exercising power on their behalf and within limits they have approved.
Would judges end up making political decisions?
Every codified system has to answer this. Constitutions differ in how much power courts have and how judges are appointed, and those choices would be part of any drafting process. The aim is that courts enforce rules the public has agreed, not invent new ones.