Everything about Constitution totally explained
A
constitution is a system for governance, often
codified as a written document, that establishes the rules and principles of an autonomous political entity. In the case of countries, this term refers specifically to a national constitution defining the fundamental
political principles, and establishing the structure, procedures,
powers and
duties, of a
government. Most national constitutions also guarantee certain
rights to the people. Historically, before the evolution of modern-style, codified national constitutions, the term
constitution could be applied to any important
law that governed the functioning of a government.
Constitutions concern different kinds of
political organizations. They are found extensively in regional government, at
supranational (for example
European Union),
Federal (for example
United States Constitution),
state or
provincial (for example
Constitution of Maryland), and
sub-national levels. They are also found in many political groups, such as
political parties,
pressure groups, and
trade unions.
Non-political entities, whether incorporated or not, also have
constitutions. These include
corporations and
voluntary associations.
Etymology
The term
constitution comes from
Latin, referring to issuing any important law, usually by the Roman emperor. Later, the term was widely used in
canon law to indicate certain relevant decisions, mainly from the
Pope.
General features
Generally, all constitutions confer specific powers to an organization on the condition that it abides by this constitution or charter limitation.
The Latin term
ultra vires describes activities of officials within an organization or polity that fall outside the constitutional or statutory authority of those officials. For example, a
students' union may be prohibited as an organization from engaging in activities not concerning students; if the union becomes involved in non-student activities these activities are considered
ultra vires of the union's charter, and nobody would be compelled by the charter to follow them. An example from the constitutional law of nation-states would be a provincial government in a federal state trying to legislate in an area exclusively enumerated to the federal government in the constitution, such as ratifying a treaty.
Ultra vires gives a legal justification for the forced cessation of such action, which might be enforced by the people with the support of a decision of the
judiciary, in a case of
judicial review. A violation of rights by an official would be
ultra vires because a (constitutional) right is a restriction on the powers of government, and therefore that official would be exercising powers he doesn't have.
When an official act is unconstitutional, for example it isn't a power granted to the government by the Constitution, that act is
null and void, and the nullification is
ab initio, that is, from inception, not from the date of the finding. It was never "law", even though, if it had been a statute or statutory provision, it might have been adopted according to the procedures for adopting legislation. Sometimes the problem isn't that a statute is unconstitutional, but the application of it is, on a particular occasion, and a court may decide that while there are ways it could be applied that are constitutional, that instance wasn't allowed or legitimate. In such a case, only the application may be ruled unconstitutional. Historically, the remedy for such violations have been petitions for common law
writs, such as
quo warranto.
History and development
Excavations in modern-day
Iraq by
Ernest de Sarzec in 1877 found evidence of the earliest known code of justice, issued by the
Sumerian king
Urukagina of
Lagash ca 2300 BC. Perhaps the earliest prototype for a law of government, this document itself hasn't yet been discovered; however it's known that it allowed some rights to his citizens. For example, it's known that it relieved tax for widows and orphans, and protected the poor from the
usury of the rich.
After that, many governments ruled by special codes of written laws. The oldest such document still known to exist seems to be the
Code of Ur-Nammu of
Ur (
ca 2050 BC). Some of the better-known ancient law codes include the code of
Lipit-Ishtar of
Isin, the
code of Hammurabi of
Babylonia, the
Hittite code, the
Assyrian code,
Mosaic law, and the
Cyrus cylinder by
Cyrus the Great of
Persia.
In 621 BC, a scribe named
Draco wrote the laws of the
city-state of
Athens; and being quite cruel, this code prescribed the
death penalty for any offence. In 594 BC,
Solon, the ruler of Athens, created the new
Solonian Constitution. It eased the burden of the workers, however it made the ruling class to be determined by wealth, rather than by birth.
Cleisthenes again reformed the Athenian constitution and set it on a democratic footing in 508 BC.
Aristotle (
ca 350 BC) was one of the first in recorded history to make a formal distinction between ordinary law and constitutional law, establishing ideas of constitution and
constitutionalism, and attempting to classify different forms of constitutional government. The most basic definition he used to describe a constitution in general terms was "the arrangement of the offices in a state". In his works
Constitution of Athens,
Politics, and
Nicomachean Ethics he explores different constitutions of his day, including those of Athens,
Sparta, and
Carthage. He classified both what he regarded as good and bad constitutions, and came to the conclusion that the best constitution was a mixed system, including monarchic, aristocratic, and democratic elements. He also distinguished between citizens, who had the exclusive opportunity to participate in the state, and non-citizens and slaves who did not.
The Romans first codified their constitution in 449 BC as the
Twelve Tables. They operated under a series of laws that were added from time to time, but
Roman law was never reorganised into a single code until the
Codex Theodosianus (AD 438); later, in the Eastern Empire the
Codex repetitæ prælectionis
(A.D. 534) was highly influential throughout Europe. This was followed in the east by the
Ecloga of
Leo III the Isaurian (740) and the
Basilica of
Basil I (878).
The
Edicts of Ashoka established constitutional principles for that
3rd century BCE Maurya king's rule in
Ancient India.
Many of the Germanic peoples that filled the power vacuum left by the Western Roman Empire in the
Early Middle Ages codified their laws. One of the first of these
Germanic law codes to be written was the Visigothic
Code of Euric (471). This was followed by the
Lex Burgundionum, applying separate codes for Germans and for Romans; the
Pactus Alamannorum; and the
Salic Law of the
Franks, all written soon after 500. In 506, the
Breviarum or
"Lex Romana" of
Alaric II, king of the Visigoths, adopted and consolidated the
Codex Theodosianus together with assorted earlier Roman laws. Systems that appeared somewhat later include the
Edictum Rothari of the
Lombards (643), the
Lex Visigothorum (654), the
Lex Alamannorum (730) and the
Lex Frisionum (
ca 785).
Japan's
Seventeen-article constitution written in 604, reportedly by
Prince Shōtoku, is an early example of a constitution in Asian political history. Influenced by
Buddhist teachings, the document focuses more on social morality than institutions of government
per se and remains a notable early attempt at a government constitution. Another is the
Constitution of Medina, drafted by the prophet of
Islam,
Muhammad, in 622. It is said to be one of the earliest constitutions which guarantees basic rights to religions and adherents as well as reinforcing a judiciary process regarding the rules of warfare, tax and civil disputes.
The
Gayanashagowa, or 'oral' constitution of the
Iroquois nation, has been estimated to date from between 1090 and 1150, and is also thought by some to have provided a partial inspiration for the US Constitution.
In
England,
Henry I's proclamation of the
Charter of Liberties in 1100 bound the king for the first time in his treatment of the clergy and the nobility. This idea was extended and refined by the English barony when they forced
King John to sign
Magna Carta in 1215. The most important single article of the
Magna Carta, related to "
habeas corpus", provided that the king wasn't permitted to imprison, outlaw, exile or kill anyone at a whim — there must be
due process of law first. This article, Article 39, of the
Magna Carta read:
No free man shall be arrested, or imprisoned, or deprived of his property, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor shall we go against him or send against him, unless by legal judgement of his peers, or by the law of the land.
This provision became the cornerstone of English liberty after that point. The
social contract in the original case was between the king and the nobility, but was gradually extended to all of the people. It led to the system of
Constitutional Monarchy, with further reforms shifting the balance of power from the monarchy and nobility to the
House of Commons.
Between 1220 and 1230, a
Saxon administrator,
Eike von Repgow, composed the
Sachsenspiegel, which became the supreme law used in parts of Germany as late as 1900.
In 1236,
Sundiata Keita presented an oral constitution federating the
Mali Empire, called the
Kouroukan Fouga.
Meanwhile, around 1240, the
Coptic Egyptian Christian writer,
'Abul Fada'il Ibn al-'Assal, wrote the
Fetha Negest in
Arabic. 'Ibn al-Assal took his laws partly from apostolic writings and Mosaic law, and partly from the former Byzantine codes. There are a few historical records claiming that this law code was translated into
Ge'ez and entered Ethiopia around 1450 in the reign of
Zara Yaqob. Even so, its first recorded use in the function of a constitution (supreme law of the land) is with
Sarsa Dengel beginning in 1563. The
Fetha Negest remained the supreme law in Ethiopia until 1931, when a modern-style Constitution was first granted by Emperor
Haile Selassie I.
Stefan Dušan, Emperor of Serbs and Greeks, made and enforced
Dušan's Code in
Serbia, in two state congresses: in 1349 in
Skopje and in 1354 in
Serres.
In
China, the
Hongwu Emperor created and refined a document he called
Ancestral Injunctions (first published in 1375, revised twice more before his death in 1398). These rules served in a very real sense as a constitution for the
Ming Dynasty for the next 250 years.
The earliest written constitution still governing a sovereign nation today may be that of
San Marino. The
Leges Statutae Republicae Sancti Marini was written in Latin and consists of six books. The first book, with 62 articles, establishes councils, courts, various executive officers and the powers assigned to them. The remaining books cover criminal and civil law, judicial procedures and remedies. Written in 1600, the document was based upon the
Statuti Comunali (Town Statute) of 1300, itself influenced by the
Codex Justinianus, and it remains in force today.
In 1639, the
Colony of Connecticut adopted the
Fundamental Orders, which is considered the first
North American constitution, and is the basis for every new Connecticut constitution since, and is also the reason for
Connecticut's nickname, the
Constitution State.
The
Corsican Constitution of 1755 and the
Swedish Constitution of 1772 were the first post-Enlightenment constitutions in Europe. The
Commonwealth of Massachusetts adopted its constitution in 1780, before the ratification of the
Articles of Confederation and the United States Constitution. It is probably the oldest still-functioning
nominal constitution, that is, where the document specifically declares itself to be a constitution. The
United States Constitution, ratified 1789, was influenced by the British constitutional system and the political system of the
United Provinces, plus the writings of
Polybius,
Locke,
Montesquieu, and others. The document became a benchmark for
republican and codified constitutions written thereafter. Next were the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Constitution of May 3, 1791 and the French Constitution of September 3, 1791.
Principles of constitutional design
Government in some form goes back to when people were hunter-gatherers and lived in villages, and a common design consisting of a "council of elders," a "chief" who led hunting or war-making activities, and one or more "priests" who provided a religious guidance or sanction to various activities. As people began to establish nations or empires and lived in cities, this design evolved into monarchical or feudal patterns, with conquerors or strongmen claiming to rule by "
divine right." Such rule led some thinkers to take the position that what mattered wasn't the design of governmental institutions and operations, but the character of the rulers. This view can be seen in
Plato, who called for rule by "philosopher-kings."
Later writers, such as
Aristotle,
Cicero and
Plutarch, would examine designs for government from a legal and historical standpoint.
The
Renaissance brought a series of political philosophers who wrote implied criticisms of the practices of monarchs and sought to identify principles of constitutional design that would be likely to yield more effective and just governance from their viewpoints. This began with revival of the Roman
law of nations concept and its application to the relations among nations, and they sought to establish customary "laws of war and peace" to ameliorate wars and make them less likely. This led to considerations of what authority monarchs or other officials have and don't have, from where that authority derives, and the remedies for abusing such authority.
A seminal juncture in this line of discourse arose in England from the
Civil War, the
Cromwellian Protectorate, the writings of
Thomas Hobbes,
Samuel Rutherford, the
Levellers,
John Milton, and
James Harrington, leading to the debate between
Robert Filmer, arguing for the divine right of monarchs, on the one side, and on the other,
Henry Neville,
James Tyrrell,
Algernon Sidney, and
John Locke. What arose from the latter was a concept of government being erected on the foundations of first, a state of nature governed by natural laws, then a state of society, established by a social contract or compact, which bring underlying natural or social laws, before governments are formally established on them as foundations.
Along the way several writers examined how the design of government was important, even if the government were headed by a monarch. They also classified various historical examples of governmental designs, typically into democracies, aristocracies, or monarchies, and considered how just and effective each tended to be and why, and how the advantages of each might be obtained by combining elements of each into a more complex design that balanced competing tendencies. Some, such as
Montesquieu, also examined how the functions of government, such as legislative, executive, and judicial, might appropriately be separated into branches. The prevailing theme among these writers was that the design of constitutions isn't completely arbitrary or a matter of taste. They generally held that there are underlying principles of design that constrain all constitutions for every polity or organization. Each built on the ideas of those before concerning what those principles might be.
The later writings of
Orestes Brownson would try to explain what constitutional designers were trying to do. According to Brownson there are, in a sense, three "constitutions" involved: The first the
constitution of nature that includes all of what was called "natural law." The second is the
constitution of society, an unwritten and commonly understood set of rules for the society formed by a social contract before it establishes a government, by which it establishes the third, a
constitution of government. The second would include such elements as the making of decisions by public
conventions called by
public notice and conducted by established
rules of procedure. Each constitution must be consistent with, and derive its authority from, the ones before it, as well as from a historical act of society formation or constitutional ratification. Brownson argued that a
state is a society with effective dominion over a well-defined territory, that consent to a well-designed constitution of government arises from presence on that territory, and that it's possible for provisions of a written constitution of government to be "unconstitutional" if they're inconsistent with the constitutions of nature or society. Brownson argued that it isn't ratification alone that makes a written constitution of government legitimate, but that it must also be competently designed and applied.
Other writers have argued that such considerations apply not only to all national constitutions of government, but also to the constitutions of private organizations, that it isn't an accident that the constitutions that tend to satisfy their members contain certain elements, as a minimum, or that their provisions tend to become very similar as they're amended after experience with their use. Provisions that give rise to certain kinds of questions are seen to need additional provisions for how to resolve those questions, and provisions that offer no course of action may best be omitted and left to policy decisions. Provisions that conflict with what Brownson and others can discern are the underlying "constitutions" of nature and society tend to be difficult or impossible to execute, or to lead to unresolvable disputes.
Constitutional design has been treated as a kind of
metagame in which play consists of finding the best design and provisions for a written constitution that will be the rules for the game of government, and that will be most likely to optimize a balance of the utilities of justice, liberty, and security. An example is the metagame
Nomic.
Governmental constitutions
Most commonly, the term
constitution refers to a set of rules and principles that define the nature and extent of government. Most constitutions seek to regulate the relationship between institutions of the state, in a basic sense the relationship between the executive, legislature and the judiciary, but also the relationship of institutions within those branches. For example, executive branches can be divided into a head of government, government departments/ministries, executive agencies and a
civil service/bureaucracy. Most constitutions also attempt to define the relationship between individuals and the state, and to establish the broad rights of individual citizens. It is thus the most basic law of a territory from which all the other laws and rules are hierarchically derived; in some territories it's in fact called "
Basic Law."
Key features
The following are features of democratic constitutions that have been identified by political scientists to exist, in one form or another, in virtually all national constitutions.
Codification
A fundamental classification is codification or lack of codification. A codified constitution is one that's contained in a single document, which is the single source of constitutional law in a state. An uncodified constitution is one that isn't contained in a single document, consisting of several different sources, which may be written or unwritten.
Codified constitution
Most states in the world have a codified constitution. Only three —
Israel,
New Zealand and the
United Kingdom — have uncodified constitutions as of October
2006. The most obvious advantages of codified constitutions are that they tend to be more coherent and more easily understood, as well as simpler to read (being single documents). However, although codified constitutions are relatively rigid, they still yield a potentially wide range of interpretations by
constitutional courts (see
below).
Codified constitutions are usually the product of dramatic political change, such as a
revolution . For example, the United States Constitution was written and subsequently ratified less than 25 years after the
American Revolution. The process by which a country adopts a constitution is closely tied to the historical and political context driving this fundamental change. This becomes evident when one compares the elaborate convention method adopted in the United States with the
MacArthur inspired post war constitution foisted on Japan (see
Constitution of Japan). Arguably the legitimacy (and often the longevity) of codified constitutions are tied to the process by which they're initially adopted.
States that have codified constitutions normally give the constitution supremacy over ordinary
statute law. That is, if there's a conflict between a legal statute and the codified constitution, all or part of the statute can be declared
ultra vires by a court and struck down as
unconstitutional. In addition, an extraordinary procedure is often required to make a
constitutional amendment. These procedures may involve: obtaining ⅔ majorities in the national legislature, the consent of regional legislatures, a
referendum process or some other procedure that makes obtaining a constitutional amendment more difficult than passing a simple law.
The
Constitution of Australia is an example of a constitution in which constitutional law mainly derives from a single written document, but other written documents are also considered part of the constitution. The
Constitution of India is the longest codified constitution in the world. It is unique in that it incorporates codes from many other constitutions like those of Japan, Malaysia, and
Anglosphere countries.
Uncodified constitution
Uncodified constitutions are the product of an "evolution" of laws and conventions over centuries. By contrast to codified constitutions, in the
Westminster tradition that originated in England, uncodified constitutions include written sources: for example constitutional statutes enacted by the Parliament (
House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975,
Northern Ireland Act 1998,
Scotland Act 1998,
Government of Wales Act 1998,
European Communities Act 1972 and
Human Rights Act 1998); and also unwritten sources:
constitutional conventions, observation of
precedents,
royal prerogatives,
custom and tradition, such as always holding the General Election on Thursdays; together these constitute the
British constitutional law. In the days of the
British Empire, the
Judicial Committee of the Privy Council acted as the constitutional court for many of the British colonies such as
Canada and
Australia which had federal constitutions.
In states using uncodified constitutions, the difference between constitutional law and
statutory law (for example law applying to any area of governance) in legal terms is nil. Both can be altered or repealed by a simple majority in Parliament. In practice, democratic governments don't use this opportunity to abolish all civil rights, which in theory they could do, but the distinction between regular and constitutional law is still somewhat arbitrary, usually depending on the traditional devotion of popular opinion to historical principles embodied in important past legislation. For example, several
Acts of Parliament such as the
Bill of Rights, Human Rights Act and, prior to the creation of Parliament, Magna Carta are regarded as granting fundamental rights and principles which are treated as almost constitutional.
See also:
Fundamental Laws of England
Written versus codified
The term
written constitution is used to describe a constitution that's entirely written, which by definition includes every codified constitution. However, some constitutions are entirely written but, strictly speaking, not entirely codified. For example, in the Constitution of Australia, most of its fundamental political principles and regulations concerning the relationship between branches of government, and concerning the government and the individual are codified in a single document, the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia. However, the presence of statutes with constitutional significance, namely the
Statute of Westminster, as adopted by the Commonwealth in the
Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942, and the
Australia Act 1986 means that Australia's constitution isn't contained in a single constitutional document. The
Constitution of Canada, which evolved from the
British North America Acts until severed from nominal British control by the
Canada Act 1982 (analogous to the Australia Act 1986), is a similar example.
The term
written constitution is often used interchangeably with
codified constitution, and similarly
unwritten constitution is used interchangeably with
uncodified constitution. As shown above, this usage with respect to written and codified constitutions can be inaccurate. Strictly speaking,
unwritten constitution is never an accurate synonym for
uncodified constitution, because all modern democratic constitutions consist of some written sources, even if they've no different technical status than ordinary statutes. Another term used is
formal (written) constitution, for example in the following context: "The United Kingdom has no formal constitution." This usage is correct, but it should be construed to mean that the United Kingdom doesn't have a written constitution, not that the UK has no constitution of any kind, which wouldn't be correct.
A constitution can be written but not codified. Codified would suggest written in one document. This means that a constitution that has a number of written sources is still written, but not codified.
Entrenchment
The presence or lack of entrenchment is a fundamental feature of constitutions. Entrenchment refers to whether the constitution is legally protected from modification without a procedure of constitutional amendment. Entrenchment is an inherent feature in most written constitutions. The US constitution is an example of an entrenched constitution, and the UK constitution is an example of a constitution that isn't entrenched.
The procedure for modifying a constitution is often called
amending. Amending an entrenched constitution requires more than the approval of the national legislature, it requires wider acceptance. Sometimes, the reason for this is that the constitution is considered supreme law, such as according to the
supremacy clause in the US constitution. Regardless of whether a constitution has this technical status, all states with an entrenched constitution recognise the difference between constitutional law and ordinary statutory law . Procedures for ratification of constitutional amendments vary between states. In a federal system of government, the approval of a majority of state/provincial legislatures may be required. Alternatively, a national referendum may be required in some states, such as in Australia.
In constitutions that are not entrenched, no special procedure is required for modification. In the small number of countries with un-entrenched constitutions, the lack of entrenchment is because the constitution isn't recognised with any higher legal status than ordinary
statutes. In the UK, for example, passing laws which modify sources of the constitution, whether they're written or unwritten, are passed on a simple majority in
Parliament. The concept of "amendment" doesn't apply, as the constitution can be altered as easily in terms of procedure as any national law.
Distribution of sovereignty
Constitutions also establish where sovereignty is located in the state. There are three basic types of distribution of sovereignty: federal, unitary and confederal. A
federal system of government will inevitably have a constitution that recognizes the division of sovereignty between the centre and peripheral/provincial regions of the state. The
Canadian Constitution is an example of this, dividing power between the federal government and the provinces. A unitary constitution recognises that sovereignty resides only in the centre of the state. In the UK, the constitutional doctrine of
Parliamentary sovereignty dictates than sovereignty is ultimately contained at the centre. Confederal constitutions are rare, and there's often dispute to whether so-called "confederal" states are actually federal. In a confederacy, sovereignty is located in peripheral regions/provinces and only limited power is granted to the centre. A historical example of a confederal constitution is the
Swiss Federal Constitution.
Separation of powers
Constitutions usually explicitly divide power between various branches of government. The standard model, described by
Baron de Montesquieu, involves three branches of government:
executive,
legislative and
judicial. Some constitutions include additional branches, such as an
auditory branch. Constitutions vary extensively as to the degree of
separation of powers between these branches.
Lines of accountability
In
presidential and
semi-presidential systems of government, department secretaries/ministers are accountable to the
president, who has patronage powers to appoint and dismiss ministers. The president is accountable to the people in an election.
In
parliamentary systems, ministers are accountable to
Parliament, but it's the
prime minister who appoints and dismisses them. In Westminster systems, this power derives from the monarch (or head of state in Westminster-style republics, such as
India and the
Republic of Ireland), a component of Parliament. There is the concept of a
vote of no confidence in many countries with parliamentary systems, which means that if a majority of the legislature vote for a no confidence motion, then the government must resign, and a new one will be formed, or parliament will be dissolved and a general election called.
Façade constitutions
Italian political theorist
Giovanni Sartori noted the existence of national constitutions which are a façade for authoritarian sources of power. While such documents may express respect for
human rights or establish an independent judiciary, they may be ignored when the government feels threatened or entirely dishonoured in practice. An extreme example was the
Constitution of the Soviet Union that on paper supported
freedom of assembly or
freedom of speech; however, citizens who acted accordingly were summarily
imprisoned. The example demonstrates that the protections and benefits of a constitution are provided less through its written terms than through deference by government and society to its principles.
Constitutional courts
The constitution is often protected by a certain legal body in each country with various names, such as
supreme,
constitutional or
high court. This court judges the compatibility of legislation with the provisions and principles of the constitution, which is termed "constitutionality." Especially important is the court's responsibility to protect constitutionally established rights and freedoms. In constitutions without the concept of supreme law, such as the United Kingdom constitution, the concept of "constitutionality" has little meaning, and constitutional courts don't exist.
A "constitutional violation" is an action or legislative act that's judged by a constitutional court to be contrary to the constitution, that is, "unconstitutional." An example of constitutional violation by the executive could be a
politician who abuses the powers of his constitutionally-established office. An example of constitutional violation by the legislature is an attempt to pass a law that would contradict the constitution, without first going through the proper constitutional amendment process.
A constitutional court is normally the
court of last resort, the highest judicial body in the government. The process of judicial review is then integrated into the system of
courts of appeal. This is the case, for example, with the
Supreme Court of the United States or
Supreme Court of India. Cases must normally be heard in lower courts before being brought before the Supreme Court, except cases for which the Supreme Court has
original jurisdiction. Some other countries dedicate a special court solely to the protection of the constitution, as with the
German Constitutional Court. Most constitutional courts are powerful instruments of judicial review, with the power to declare laws "unconstitutional," that is, incompatible with the constitution. The effect of this ruling varies between governments, but it's common for the courts' action to rule a law unenforceable, as is the case in the United States. However, many courts have the problem of relying on the legislative and executive branches' co-operation to properly enforce their decisions. For example, in the United States, the Supreme Court's ruling overturning the "separate but equal" doctrine in the 1950s depended on individual states co-operation to enforce. Some failed to do so, prompting the federal government to intervene. Other countries, such as France, have a
Constitutional Council which may only judge the constitutionality of laws before the ratification process.
Some countries, mainly those with uncodified constitutions, have no such courts at all – for example, as the United Kingdom traditionally functions under the principle of
parliamentary sovereignty: the legislature has the power to enact any law it wishes. However, through its membership in the European Union, the UK is now subject to the jurisdiction of
European Union law and the
European Court of Justice; similarly, by acceding to the
Council of Europe's
European Convention on Human Rights, it's subject to the
European Court of Human Rights. In effect, these bodies are constitutional courts that can invalidate or interpret UK legislation, first established as a principle by the
Factortame case.
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