Accurately Assess The Incorporation Of Constitutional Conventions

Constitutional Commission A (hypothetical) Constitutional Commission is considering how (if at all) constitutional conventions might be incorporated into the draft of a new constitution of the United Kingdom. What options face the Commission on what to recommend about conventions, and which course of action would be preferable?

In order to accurately assess the incorporation of Constitutional conventions into the draft of a new Constitution of the United Kingdom, one must firstly look at the definition and nature of constitutional conventions. A succinct definition is that a convention is a constitutional practice or way of behaving which is considered to be binding on

If politicians (of any other governmental instrument) act in the same way for a number of years, a convention can arise because of tradition; if the mechanism works, there seems to be little point in changing it. The most important example of a convention derived from tradition is that the monarch acts on ministerial advice. This convention has been apparent since the late 19th century. A more unusual way for a convention to arise is through specific agreement. A lucid illustration of convention arising through this fashion is that of the Northern Ireland Act of 1949 where the British government agreed by convention that there would be no exclusion of Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom unless the majority of people in Northern Ireland wished for this to happen. From the above description of constitutional conventions, it can thus be asserted that conventions are ambiguous in both their definition and nature and their incorporation into the draft of a new Constitution would therefore have advantages and disadvantages.

An advantage to the codification of conventions is that a

This was due to opposition from the Senate, whose approval was needed. In the face of Whitlam refusing to hold a general election in order to resolve the deadlock, Governor-General Sir John Kerr dismissed him.[1] Although this act was constitutionally sound, it was never deemed as likely to happen as Whitlam obviously held a majority in the House of Representatives. This incident was damaging to the status of the role of Governor-General and the commission could perhaps question the damaging effect it would have on the Monarch in the United Kingdom should such an incident happen here. The Australian crisis also illustrates how easily unwritten conventions can be overridden in and lays grounding for the idea that if a set of conditions on which the Governor-General (or Monarch) could act in order to resolve political conflict then potentially such a crisis could be averted.

However, some have labelled the possible codification of conventions as a “housekeeping exercise” [2] and an unnecessary measure