Letter from America
A VIEW FROM OVER THERE By Will McLeod, New York
Time for a new constitution W
HEN I tell my fellow Americans that people in the UK are
taught that a constitution is a set of nebulous undefi ned principals rather than a writ en legal document the responses I get range from disbelief and confusion to raucous laughter.
Aſt er all, our laws are built on the English, Scot ish, and French legal systems. We’re taught about English Common Law and the Magna Carta in school. The Declaration of Arbroath is cited as the inspirational document for our Declaration of Independence. The UK calls itself a “Constitutional” Monarchy so it must have a constitution of some sort, we assume.
People living in the UK are the only people on earth who teach their children that a constitution is a set of principles. America, like most of the rest of the world, thinks a constitution is a legal document that exists to both enable and constrain the government. The constitution is the source of the government’s rights and responsibilities, as well as a wall of separation between the government and our rights. A set of nebulous principles cannot enable a government, it cannot be a social contract between the people and the government, it cannot lay the foundations for government, nor can it by law keep the government within due bounds.
But it serves a secondary function. The arguments over devolution in the UK which are breaking up Britain aren’t possible in the US. With some very sad
Above - T e ‘Tyninghame’ copy of the Declaration of Arbroath from 1320 AD
exceptions, such as American Samoa, some other US colonies and Washington DC, each region of the US is fairly equal in terms of representation in government and political power.
The USA with a population of some May 2015 17
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