CM : British Civilisation / The Political Institutions of the UK

Chapter I: The British Constitution

Introduction

As early as 1215 England had a charter of liberties containing sixty-one clauses : in defining the feudal obligations between the king and his barons, outlawing abuses of administrative power and preventing the king from manipulating the law to his advantage, Magna Carta limited royal rights for the first time and established the principle that the king is not above the law. Four centuries later, the political history of the Stuart era (1603-1714) was characterized by a conflict between the Crown and Parliament which led to the execution ok king Charles I in 1649 and the abolition of the monarchy. The monarchy was restored in 1660, but it was completely different from what it had been under the Tudors (16th century) and James I: it was a parliamentary monarchy where the power of the monarch was no longer absolute. In other words, at a time when most European regimes were becoming more absolutist and centralized, England was the first country in the world to develop a system of parliamentary government and individual freedom. And the political system which evolved over the centuries in the UK from those foundations is said to be the model of Western-style parliamentary democracy.
But at the same time it is often claimed, too, that there is no British constitution. How can such a paradox be explained ?
In fact, the UK does not have a constitution in the sense of one single document laying out the fundamental principles of the political system, the composition and organisation of the various institutions, and the way they interact with each other and with the citizens (like the Constitution de la Vème République in France, for example). So the constitution of the UK is sometimes said to be « uncodified » or « unwritten », but that is not quite true either.
Indeed, it is composed of written documents, such as laws voted by Parliament, as well