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Chargement... The British Constitution: A Very Short Introductionpar Martin Loughlin
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Inscrivez-vous à LibraryThing pour découvrir si vous aimerez ce livre Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre. Another excellent book from the OUP's Very Short Introduction Series. Loughlin does his best to give a clear description of the British Constitution - which is no easy task! The book concludes: so we end as we began, not with answers but with a new set of questions. Certainly, if you were hoping to have the answer to 'What is the British Constitution?', you may be disappointed. Other countries have, at some point, held a revolution, murdered their kings and tyrants, and written down a sensible description of how they want to be governed. The Brits can't even decide who they are! At various points the key players conceive of themselves as English, British, Saxon, Scottish, Irish, (the poor Welsh don't get much of a say) or even Norman. They come together through conquest or union and separate by choice. They don't just overthrow kings: they ambush them, kill them, expel them, invite them back and negotiate with them. Other nations celebrate their revolutions and constitutions as bold adventures in government. The Brits pretend that actually constitution change is a very conservative resurrection of rights they definitely always had all along. Consequently, the British Constitution is a mishmash of various habits, customs, laws, Acts and accidents. The fact is that it doesn't really make much sense and the Brits have dealt with the problem by ignoring it, fudging it and getting testy with anyone who enquires too closely. Through-out the 20th Century more and more people have been enquiring, as the make-shift situation gradually loses the confidence of the people - not to mention the effect of joining the EU which creates several headaches about where things like legitimacy or rights even come from. So the questions is far from settled, and there are exciting times ahead as judges grow more and more active in interpreting constitutional law. Oxford publishes a great many of these Very Short Introductions. I have read several, and this may be the best I have found. It crams a great deal in. In truth I was glad I had read a chunk of public law before I started, as the book displays a level of sophistiation which richly rewards a more knowledgeable reading. Were you to read it as a complete and intitial introduction ot the subject, some of its finer points might evade you. It was sufficiently comprehensive to receive a a (favourable) review from Sir Stephen Sedley in the LRB, and not many of its companions have achieved so senior a reception. Loughlin is capable of expressing the significance of profoundly complex events in one or two sentences. I disagreed with him only once, and then only about an inference rather than a conclusion (I don't think that Britain's developing class consciousness was constitutionally unsettling - our patrician constitution was unsettled to begin with; our class consciousness corrected it). Speaking of conclusions: the book lacks one. But that is the nature of Britain's current constitutional status. It is very much in flux. A great little book and worthy of second reading. aucune critique | ajouter une critique
Appartient à la série
The British constitution is regarded as unique among the constitutions of the world. What are the main characteristics of Britain's peculiar constitutional arrangements? How has the British constitution altered in response to the changing nature of its state - from England, to Britain, to theUnited Kingdom? What impact has the UK's developing relations with the European Union caused?These are some of the questions that Martin Loughlin addresses in this Very Short Introduction. As a constitution, it is one that has grown organically in response to changes in the economic, political, and social environment, and which is not contained in a single authoritative text.By considering the nature and authority of the current British constitution, and placing it in the context of others, Loughlin considers how the traditional idea of a constitution came to be retained, what problems have been generated as a result of adapting a traditional approach in a modernpolitical world, looking at what the future prospects for the British constitution are. Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
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Google Books — Chargement... GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)342.4102Social sciences Law Constitutional and administrative law Europe British Isles, Ireland, Scotland Basic instruments of government {constitutions, municipal charters}Classification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne:
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…. And also that the US idea of law is in some ways more like France than the UK, which some of the Founders at least believed, and which I never understood. Actually arguably in conservatism-izing the US Constitution—as much as we call it the American Revolution, we tend to think of it as the American Anti-Revolution—the conservatives have made the Constitution more British and less American. Though I suppose the way that the British do things with the traditional constitution is how the world in general used to do things, and not only in Europe.
…. I wonder how it will be for our friends the British in the future. I wonder how much a constitution changes daily life, and how much it’s like the character of the people.
…. And, you know, the British can be funny. Inglaterra es diferente. England is different. 🇪🇸 whoops! Wrong one! 😸