Fun facts about the UK supreme court:
- It was created by an Act of Parliament
- It is a government department
- It can not overturn primary legislation
- Parliament could dissolve the court if it so wished
- It was created by an Act of Parliament
- It is a government department
- It can not overturn primary legislation
- Parliament could dissolve the court if it so wished
Yup, in the two cases that come to mind, the Supreme Court kicked the issue back to Parliament: Miller I[1] said that, given the extreme constitutional consequences of no deal, the Government couldn't unilaterally trigger Article 50, such a decision could only come from Parliament. This was more just a procedural issue. An Act[2] was passed a couple months after the judgment, and Article 50 was triggered a couple days later. Whereas, Miller II[3] was about the Government proroguing Parliament in order to silence it. The Supreme Court was having none of that, so it annulled the prorogation. In both cases, the Supreme Court was protecting Parliament.
- [1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_(Miller)_v_Secretary_of_Stat...>
- [2] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_(Notification_o...>
- [3] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_(Miller)_v_The_Prime_Ministe...>
> But I guess without a strong constitution
They're nominated by the president, but approved by the Senate. There have been cases throughout history where a nominated judge doesn't get through the approval process. Of course when the president and the Senate are aligned and in agreement this approval process is largely a rubber stamp.
Can't he override everything with pardons and executive orders anyway?
Not at all. Despite what it sometimes looks like, the president's executive order powers are quite limited. But again, if congress isn't willing to challenge the order and the Supreme Court isn't willing to rule on it, these limits are more theoretical.
Can't the US constitution be, uh, amended?
It can, but it is a slow and difficult process, requiring 2/3 support of both the house and the senate, plus support from 3/4 of the States. There have apparently been over 10000 attempts to amend the constitution since the founding, of which 27 have passed. Furthermore the president has no power to suggest or approve constitutional amendments.
Basically a president that doesn't have the support of Congress and the Supreme Court has surprisingly little power.
Which - fun fact - is possible to do with states that together amount to less than 25% of the overall country population. In fact, given that it's really the legislature that needs to vote for ratification, and given FPTP being typical on state level as well + the usual gerrymandering etc that this enables, it's actually possible to amend the US Constitution arbitrarily with something like 10% of the voters (acting in concert to vote in the state legislatures that would then do the amending), if they have just the right geographic distribution.
Our supreme court is different to the US supreme court for example
Face it, if the constitution is "whatever the prevailing political elite class says it is", then you don't have a constitution.
The Brits have nothing.
> The Brits have nothing.
There are words in the British constitution as well. Acts of Parliament that define how the Parliament and the courts function are constitutional laws, such as the Parliament Acts of 1911 & 1949 and the Constitutional Reform Act 2005. If we are going by words, there are a lot more words in these multiple constitutional documents than in the constitutional documents of many countries that only have one such document.
Neither the monarch, nor individual Members of Parliament, are above all limits under UK law.
> It is scary to think what Parliament can do with a simple majority.
1. Members of Parliament (MPs) represent roughly 70k people. And while that's still a significant number, it's small enough for them to know and be known by their constituents. It's more difficult to vote against your constituents when you know them.
2. The House of Lords (HoL) can revise and delay, but not block, which means we are functionally immune from cross-chamber games of chicken that result in US-style government shutdowns, or European-style budget bills as confidence motions. We did come pretty close to this with Brexit in 2019, but this was all within the House of Commons given that the ruling party did not command a majority.
3. Parliamentarians usually respect the inertia of institution. As in, the idea that it's right to continue things as they've always been done, unless there's a compelling reason. It's why we're still a Monarchy, why there's still bishops and hereditaries in the House of Lords, etc. Basically, there's a culture of incrementalism. Because if you don't have the inertia, you appear to lack legitimacy, it's just a gimmick.
4. And on the heels of that, I think Parliamentarians have an occupational understanding of the adage "With great power comes great responsibility."
5. The Civil Service, while ostensibly neutral, tends to resign when asked to do anything believed to be damaging to the country.
All of this put together (and probably more than I haven't thought of) means that MPs understand that they could do great damage, and so they restrain themselves.
Contrast this with other countries with difficult systems where politicians stir up the passions of their constituents by naming their systemic limitations, "I would love to do X, but I can't because Y prevents me." A somewhat related example would be abortion in the US, where after Roe v Wade was decided, many states became soapboxes for anti-abortion rhetoric. It's a safe rhetorical position: you can say what you like and then blame the federal government for not being able to do it. But then Roe v Wade was overturned and many of these politicians and states have changed their tune, because the power is now in their hands, they are now answerable to their constituents on this matter. Not that it matters given how much gerrymandering there is, but still, the effect was noticeable.
Mostly self preservation I guess. It's not unheard of for a party to get wiped out.
I feel the Queen made moves behind the scenes to keep the government in check too. As much as she could. Not sure about Charles
I'm sure they're looking at Trump and realising they can get away with anything if they want to.
Ministers used to resign in disgrace over far less severe things than we've seen the past 2 decades. Now you can just easily distract the public with scandal after scandal or issue after issue. Then they can re-enter politics