Common Law Constitution

Programme origin¶

This project began as I felt there was a need to restore Parliament to its primary constitutional work: supervising the executive, controlling supply, presenting grievances, and holding public power to account. This Constitution hopefully secures that restoration.

The modern constitutional problem has not usually come by tyranny, but by accumulation.

Statute has been used for power while liberty was left to ancient custom.

Introduction: Method and Purpose¶

This instrument does not invent new constitutional rights. It gathers, restates, and confirms the ancient and enduring principles already embedded in the constitutional statutes of this realm, including Magna Carta 1297, the Petition of Right 1628, the Habeas Corpus Act 1679, the Coronation Oath Act 1688, the Bill of Rights 1689, the Claim of Right Act 1689, the Toleration Act 1689, the Act of Settlement 1701, the Acts of Union 1706–1707, and the Union with Ireland Act 1800.

Each Equal Free Person¶

The foundation of this Constitution is not the sovereignty of Parliament, nor the abstract sovereignty of a collective called “the People,” but the liberty and dignity of each equal free person under God and the Common Law.

Each equal free person possesses his own liberty, conscience, property, household, labour, and lawful associations. Civil society exists so that equal free persons may live together under settled law, mutual duty, public peace, and impartial justice.

Where this Constitution speaks of “the people,” it does not mean an abstract collective will standing above the citizen. It means the citizens of the Kingdom: each equal free person acting with others through lawful constitutional forms.

Parliament, ministers, courts, and public offices are trustees and servants of that settlement. They do not create the liberty of the citizen. They are instituted to secure it.

Constitutional Statutes, Procedure, and Amendment¶

This Constitution builds upon principles already recognised in modern public law. The courts have acknowledged that certain constitutional statutes occupy a special position in our law. They are not treated as ordinary Acts capable of being silently overridden by later inconsistent legislation. If Parliament intends to alter or abrogate such constitutional provisions, it must do so expressly and unmistakably.

This Constitution develops that principle into a clearer settlement. Ancient liberties, constitutional statutes, and the fundamental limits of public power should not depend upon accident, implication, administrative convenience, or legislative drift. They must either be preserved, or altered openly through the constitutional process.

This Constitution also establishes rules governing the manner and form by which certain future legislation may be validly enacted. These include rules concerning Money Bills, fiscal ceilings, constitutional Bills, the powers of the New House of Lords, and reference to the people. The Parliament Acts provide an important precedent for such a settlement: they altered the conditions under which legislation could be enacted without the consent of the House of Lords, and that constitutional machinery was later upheld by the courts.

This Constitution does not pretend to create an unamendable settlement by ordinary parliamentary enactment. A future Parliament may seek to repeal or replace it. That is the price of establishing the settlement through Parliament rather than by adopting a wholly new constitutional order based on enumerated powers, supermajority amendment rules, judicial supremacy, and referendum entrenchment. That alternative is a coherent constitutional model, but it is not this model.

The purpose of this Constitution is more modest and more rooted in the British tradition. It does not make constitutional change impossible. It makes constitutional change deliberate, express, visible, and politically accountable. No future government should be able to unmake the settlement by implication, administrative drift, treaty mechanism, delegated legislation, financial device, procedural shortcut, or accidental inconsistency. If Parliament wishes to alter the constitutional settlement, it must do so openly and by the constitutional process.

Authorities: Thoburn v Sunderland City Council [2002] EWHC 195 (Admin); Jackson v Attorney General [2005] UKHL 56.

The Legal Inheritance Carried Forward¶

By grounding this restatement in the language, substance, and constitutional purpose of the original statutes, the accumulated legal inheritance surrounding those statutes is carried forward. The courts’ interpretation over centuries of “the law of the land” under Magna Carta, of the true cause of detention under the Habeas Corpus Act, and of excessive bail, excessive fines, and cruel and unusual punishments under the Bill of Rights, does not disappear. It attaches to this instrument as part of the same constitutional tradition.

This document therefore does not arrive without history. It arrives bearing the weight of common law precedent, parliamentary settlement, judicial interpretation, and constitutional commentary. Its purpose is not to sever the present from the past, but to gather what remains enduring and make it intelligible for the present age.

What Has Been Omitted¶

The source statutes contain provisions which were necessary or intelligible in their own time, but which do not state enduring constitutional principle: provisions concerning royal succession and dynasty, sectarian disability and religious test, obsolete offices and forms of proceeding, and circumstances no longer applicable.

Those provisions are not restated here. The principles underlying the constitutional statutes are restated instead: restraint of arbitrary power, government under law, liberty of the person, due process, justice without sale or delay, accountability of public officers, parliamentary consent to taxation, the independence of the courts, and the preservation of the ancient liberties of the citizen.

The Christian Constitutional Foundation¶

The laws of this Kingdom were formed within a Christian civilisation, and that is a matter of historical and constitutional fact. The common law did not emerge from a vacuum. Its presumptions of liberty, its insistence upon truth in proceedings, its concept of mercy alongside justice, its distrust of arbitrary power, and its requirement that ruler and subject alike answer before the same law developed within, and were shaped by, that inheritance.

This instrument acknowledges that inheritance because to omit it would misrepresent the character and origin of the law it restates. That acknowledgment imposes no theological requirement on any reader and diminishes the protection of no person. All persons within the realm, of whatever faith or none, have the full protection of the law and liberty of conscience.

The point is not to impose doctrine, but to state history truthfully. This Kingdom was constituted as a Christian realm, and its law reflects that constitution. It would be as eccentric to suppress that fact as to suppress the Roman law foundations of Scots private law.

Sovereignty and External Authority¶

This instrument also states the sovereign limits of external authority within the realm. Provisions concerning foreign states, international bodies, treaty organs, courts, corporations, foundations, forums, private associations, and other external powers are consolidated in Article 6, so that the constitutional position is stated once, plainly, and with full force.

The purpose is not hostility to foreign nations, lawful treaties, commerce, alliance, or friendship. It is to affirm that no external authority may exercise legislative, executive, judicial, fiscal, military, regulatory, or administrative power within this realm except through the lawful constitutional organs of the realm and subject to its law.

Structure of the Instrument¶

This instrument is cast as an Act of Parliament, consistent with the common law tradition that rights are declared and confirmed by Parliament rather than granted by it. Articles 1–5 address the rights of persons against arbitrary power. Article 6 addresses sovereignty and the limits of external authority. Articles 7–9 address Parliament, executive power, the armed forces, free elections, consent of the people, and the accountability of public officers. Articles 10–12 address the independence and authority of the courts, the preservation of ancient liberties, and constitutional supremacy. Article 13 addresses the Union, movement, and the laws of the realm.

• Article 1 — Government Under Law
• Article 2 — Consent to Taxation and Financial Stewardship
• Article 3 — Liberty of the Person and Habeas Corpus
• Article 4 — Due Process and Trial by Law
• Article 5 — Justice, Bail, Fines, and Punishment
• Article 6 — Sovereignty and the Limits of External Authority
• Article 7 — Parliament, the Executive, and the Armed Forces
• Article 8 — Free Parliament and Consent of the People
• Article 9 — Accountability of Public Officers
• Article 10 — Independence and Authority of the Courts
• Article 11 — Preservation of Ancient Liberties
• Article 12 — Constitutional Supremacy
• Article 13 — The Union, Movement, and the Laws of the Realm

Preamble¶

The citizens of this Kingdom, each equal free person, possess true, ancient and indubitable rights and liberties, not as grants from the Crown, Parliament, ministers, or courts, but as their Christian inheritance under God and the Common Law.

And whereas Parliament has in former times confirmed and declared those rights and liberties in various constitutional statutes, which declared principles necessary for the restraint of arbitrary power, the preservation of the law, and the liberty of the subject; the passage of time has meant that provisions concerned with sectarian disability, royal succession, dynasty, obsolete offices, forms of proceeding, or circumstances no longer applicable have caused the whole statutes themselves to tend into disuse;

This Act of Parliament gathers together and restates their enduring Christian principles for the present age; so that public power may be exercised only under law; so that Parliament may not be displaced by prerogative, executive convenience, administrative practice, or emergency pretext; and so that the liberty of the person may not be sold, denied, delayed, defeated, or removed beyond the protection of the courts.

Sources: MC.1; CO.1; CO.2; CO.3; BR.1; BR.3; AS.1; AS.4; PR.5; HC.7

Article 1 — Government Under Law¶

1. The citizens of this Kingdom, each equal free person, possess true, ancient and indubitable rights and liberties, and all public power is held in trust for their protection.
2. All lawful authority in this Kingdom is a trust under God, and no Crown, Parliament, Minister, judge, officer, public body, or other power may exercise authority as though justice, mercy, truth, conscience, and the law of the land were subject merely to will, force, convenience, or command.
3. The United Kingdom shall be governed according to law.
4. No person or public authority, including the Crown, Ministers, officers of state, public bodies, courts, armed forces, police, local authorities, or any body exercising public power, is above the Law.
5. All powers of government are held in trust for the citizens of the Kingdom and may be exercised only for lawful public purposes.

Parliament is entrusted with public power for the public good.

Its authority is held in trust for the people and must be exercised for the peace, liberty, security, prosperity, justice, and good government of the Kingdom.

No House of Parliament, minister, department, public body, regulator, court, or officer of the state may treat public power as an instrument of party advantage, administrative convenience, sectional interest, private enrichment, ideological experiment, foreign influence, or domination over the citizen.

6. No delegation of public power shall sever the chain of constitutional accountability. Public power is held on trust. Delegation is permitted; orphan power is not. Every power exercised in the name of the state shall remain subject to lawful authority, ministerial responsibility, parliamentary supervision, and remedy for the citizen.
7. No prerogative, executive order, administrative instruction, emergency power, delegated authority, treaty, international agreement, foreign standard, external undertaking, or private compact may suspend, dispense with, override, or displace the law except so far as expressly authorised by Parliament and subject to this Constitution.

Sources: CO.1; CO.2; CR.1; CR.2; AS.4; AS.5; BR.2.1; BR.2.2; BR.3; BR.4; PR.6

Article 2 — Consent to Taxation and Financial Stewardship¶

8. No tax, levy, charge, forced loan, benevolence, contribution, public imposition, or similar obligation may be imposed except by or under Act of Parliament.
9. No person shall be compelled to lend money, make contribution, render account, answer demand, or bear any like imposition for the Crown or any public authority except according to law.
10. No refusal or failure to comply with an unlawful demand, charge, imposition, or obligation shall justify imprisonment, penalty, harassment, exclusion from public rights, administrative detriment, or other disadvantage.
11. Every public imposition shall be necessary, proportionate, intelligible, and no more onerous than is reasonably required for the lawful public purpose for which it is imposed.
12. Public money is held on trust for the people. No Minister, officer, department, public body, or authority shall make a promise of public money, incur a public liability, seek supply, or present public expenditure to Parliament without lawful authority, honest disclosure of material cost and risk, and proper account to Parliament and to the public.
13. A constitutional fiscal ceiling shall be established for taxation, public expenditure, borrowing, public debt, guarantees, contingent liabilities, and such other public commitments as may affect the solvency and financial independence of the Realm.
14. The initial fiscal ceiling shall be settled only upon certified alternatives placed before Parliament and the people, and no such alternative shall be submitted unless certified as complete, intelligible, internally consistent, and capable of informed public judgment.
15. Any proposal to increase the fiscal ceiling after its initial settlement shall be stated, quantified, and certified according to law before it may be approved by both Houses or submitted to the people.
16. Where both Houses approve a certified proposal to increase the fiscal ceiling, the ceiling may be raised accordingly. Where the Houses disagree, the matter may be referred to the people by plebiscite, in which the choice shall be between the existing ceiling and the proposed higher ceiling.
17. A general election shall not be treated as authority to increase the fiscal ceiling unless the proposed increase was expressly stated and quantified in the manifesto of the party forming the Government, and the supporting figures and assumptions were certified before publication of that manifesto.
18. Such certified figures and assumptions shall be deemed legally adequate for all constitutional, parliamentary, electoral, and legal purposes; and no court or tribunal shall question the substance of such certification, save as to whether the certificate was issued by the proper authority, identified the relevant fiscal proposal, and was issued at the required time.
19. No more than one increase of the fiscal ceiling shall be made during the life of a Parliament. Any second proposal to increase the ceiling during the same Parliament shall require dissolution and a general election before it may proceed.
20. Nothing in this Article prevents a Government from using the same constitutional procedure to reduce the fiscal ceiling. A reduced ceiling shall thereafter enjoy the same constitutional protection as the initial ceiling.
21. No Bill shall be certified as a Money Bill unless accompanied by a fiscal impact statement setting out its effect upon the constitutional fiscal ceiling. No Money Bill shall be certified, sent to the New House of Lords, or presented for Royal Assent under the Money Bill procedure where that statement shows that the Bill, whether alone or in combination with other Bills or measures already enacted or authorised, would exceed the fiscal ceiling, unless the ceiling has first been lawfully adjusted according to this Constitution.

Sources: PR.1; PR.2; BR.2.3; BR.4; AS.4

Article 3 — Liberty of the Person and Habeas Corpus¶

All people are equal under the law.

22. No person shall be arrested, imprisoned, detained, confined, transported, exiled, removed, or otherwise deprived of liberty except according to law.
23. Every detained person has the right to be informed promptly, in plain and intelligible terms, of the true legal cause of their detention.
24. Every detained person has the right to prompt access to a court for determination of the lawfulness of that detention.
25. The court shall have power to order any person or authority detaining, holding, transferring, or controlling the detained person to produce both the body of the detained person and the true legal cause of detention.
26. If the detention is unlawful, the court shall order the detained person’s release.
27. No person released by order of a court shall be detained again for the same cause by colourable alteration of the warrant, accusation, description, place of detention, detaining authority, or legal pretext.
28. No person shall be removed, transferred, deported, rendered, extradited, delivered into foreign custody, or sent outside the jurisdiction, whether by domestic authority, foreign request, treaty, agreement, private arrangement, or other device, for the purpose or effect of avoiding the protection of the courts, the law of the land, or the rights and liberties declared in this Constitution; but nothing in this Article shall prevent lawful deportation, extradition, removal, or transfer carried out according to law and subject to the supervision of the courts.
29. No public authority shall conceal, obscure, misdescribe, delay, or withhold the true legal basis of any detention, nor frustrate access to the courts by administrative practice, emergency power, private contract, foreign arrangement, or any other device.
30. Any person or authority who knowingly frustrates habeas corpus, conceals the true cause of detention, refuses to produce the detained person, transfers a person to evade judicial supervision, or detains a person contrary to court order shall be answerable in law.

Sources: PR.5; HC.1; HC.2; HC.3; HC.4; HC.5; HC.6; HC.7; BR.4

Article 4 — Due Process and Trial by Law¶

Justice must be lawful, open, independent, timely, and accessible.

31. No person shall be condemned, punished, or deprived of life, liberty, property, office, livelihood, licence, status, or civil right except by due process of law.
32. No person shall be tried or punished by martial law, military commission, emergency tribunal, special commission, administrative authority, or extraordinary jurisdiction while the ordinary courts are open and capable of administering justice.
33. No court, commission, tribunal, authority, scheme, or proceeding may be created or used for the purpose or effect of evading the ordinary law of the land.
34. No grant, promise, seizure, restraint, forfeiture, disability, inhibition, fine, confiscation, or other burden or penalty shall be made or imposed before lawful conviction, judgment, or due process according to law.
35. Where immediate restraint is necessary to preserve life, liberty, property, evidence, or the due administration of justice, such restraint shall be authorised by a court, shall be temporary and proportionate, and shall continue no longer than justice requires.
36. No person shall be denied the protection of the ordinary courts by reason of prerogative, emergency, administrative convenience, delegated power, public policy, private contract, treaty, foreign arrangement, or any other device.

Sources: PR.4; PR.5; BR.2.9; HC.2; HC.3

Justice Shall Not Be Sold¶

Magna Carta declared that justice shall not be sold, denied, or delayed. A legal system in which an ordinary citizen cannot safely enforce his rights against a wealthy opponent has, in practical effect, sold justice to those able to bear the risk of litigation.

Access to law is not enough. The citizen must have access to justice without being ruined by the cost of seeking it.

37. In any proceedings, the recoverable costs of each party shall first be assessed according to the ordinary rules of reasonableness, proportionality, and proper conduct.
38. Once those figures have been settled, the lower of the parties' recoverable costs figures shall set the maximum recoverable costs award available to either side.
39. A party may spend what it chooses on its own representation, experts, advisers, and litigation strategy. But it may not recover from its opponent costs exceeding the maximum recoverable figure available to that opponent.
40. This rule shall not prevent the court from disallowing costs incurred unreasonably, dishonestly, vexatiously, abusively, or for an improper purpose. It prevents superior spending power from being converted into superior litigation risk.
41. The courts shall settle their forms, pleadings, directions, evidential requirements, hearings, enforcement procedures, and costs rules on the presumption that any litigant may be a litigant in person.
42. The individual litigant is not an inconvenience to the justice system. He is the reason the justice system exists. A system which requires professional representation for ordinary justice has ceased to be an ordinary system of justice.

Article 5 — Justice, Bail, Fines, and Punishment¶

Justice shall not be sold, denied, or delayed.

43. Excessive bail shall not be required of any person accused of any offence. In determining whether bail is excessive, the court shall have regard to the nature and gravity of the alleged offence, the circumstances and means of the accused, the risk of flight or interference with justice, and the presumption in favour of liberty pending trial.
44. No person remanded in custody pending trial shall be detained for longer than is necessary and proportionate to the legitimate purpose of that remand.
45. Excessive fines shall not be imposed. Every fine shall be proportionate to the gravity of the offence and to the means of the offender. No fine shall be imposed in an amount bearing no reasonable relation to the conduct it punishes, nor in an amount designed in substance to confiscate rather than penalise, save by lawful process for forfeiture or confiscation following conviction.
46. Cruel, unusual, degrading, or unlawful punishments shall not be inflicted. No punishment shall be imposed that is grossly disproportionate to the offence. Parliament, the courts, and all public authorities shall have regard to the standard here declared in making, construing, and applying any provision for punishment.
47. No person shall be punished for any act or omission that was not an offence at the time it was committed. No person shall be subjected to a penalty greater than that which was lawfully applicable at the time of the act or omission. Retrospective criminal liability and retrospective increase of punishment shall not be valid.
48. No person finally acquitted or convicted of an offence shall be tried again for the same offence arising from the same facts, save where a prior acquittal was obtained by fraud upon the court or where Parliament has made express and limited provision for retrial in cases of grave crime upon new and compelling evidence, consistently with due process of law.
49. Justice shall not be sold, denied, or delayed. No court, tribunal, minister, officer, public authority, or person exercising public power shall make the remedy due to any person conditional upon payment, administrative obstruction, unreasonable delay, or any device inconsistent with the free and equal administration of justice.
50. Fees, charges, rules of procedure, and requirements of form may be prescribed for the orderly administration of justice, but they shall not be used so as to prevent, defeat, or render illusory the right of any person to obtain a lawful remedy.
51. Any person or authority who imposes excessive bail, excessive fines, cruel, unusual, degrading, or unlawful punishments, or who sells, denies, or delays justice, shall be answerable according to law.

Sources: MC.3; BR.2.8; BR.2.9; PR.5; CO.2

Article 6 — Sovereignty and the Limits of External Authority¶

52. No foreign state, international organisation, court, corporation, foundation, forum, treaty body, private association, or other external power shall exercise legislative, executive, judicial, fiscal, military, regulatory, or administrative authority within this Kingdom except according to the law of the land as preserved and declared by this Constitution, subject to Parliament, and with the informed consent of the people.
53. No judgment, ruling, standard, direction, obligation, or requirement of any external body shall bind the courts, Parliament, ministers, public authorities, or people of this Kingdom so far as it is contrary to this Constitution or to the law of the land as preserved and declared by it.
54. No tax, levy, charge, contribution, public imposition, public expenditure, financial obligation, regulatory burden, or other burden upon the people shall arise from any treaty, international agreement, foreign standard, external undertaking, regulatory alignment, compact, or arrangement with any foreign state, international organisation, court, corporation, foundation, forum, treaty body, private association, or other external power, except by or under Act of Parliament, subject to the law of the land as preserved and declared by this Constitution, and with the informed consent of the people.
55. No treaty, international agreement, foreign standard, external undertaking, regulatory alignment, compact, arrangement, or other external obligation shall transfer, suspend, or diminish the constitutional authority of Parliament, the independence of the courts, the liberties of the people, or the law of the land, except by express constitutional amendment made in accordance with this Constitution.
56. No minister, officer, public authority, court, tribunal, corporation, foundation, private association, or other person exercising public power shall give effect within this Kingdom to any external authority otherwise than according to the law of the land as preserved and declared by this Constitution.
57. Nothing in this Article shall prevent Parliament from entering into lawful treaties, alliances, commercial agreements, mutual recognition arrangements, or other international agreements under its constitutional authority, provided that no such treaty or agreement shall have domestic force except according to the law of the land as preserved and declared by this Constitution.
58. Foreign affairs remain the responsibility of ministers answerable to Parliament. Ordinary treaties, agreements, protocols, and arrangements concerned with trade, defence cooperation, extradition, travel, fisheries, scientific cooperation, mutual recognition, and other ordinary matters of international relations may continue in the normal way, subject to parliamentary scrutiny and this Constitution.
59. The constitutional threshold is crossed where any treaty, agreement, protocol, court, treaty body, regulator, forum, framework, guidance system, or external arrangement confers legislative, executive, judicial, fiscal, military, regulatory, or administrative authority over the Kingdom or its people to any individual or body outside the United Kingdom.
60. At that point the matter is no longer merely foreign policy. It is constitutional alteration and shall proceed under the constitutional procedure governing the second chamber and the consent of the people.

Sources: BR.3; BR.4; AS.4; AS.5; CR.1; CR.2; US.1; UI.1

Article 7 — Parliament, the Executive, and the Armed Forces¶

Necessity may justify temporary power; it must never become permanent abuse.

61. The Crown, Ministers, or the executive shall not suspend, dispense with, alter, or set aside the law, or the execution of the law, except according to law, subject to Parliament, and subject to this Constitution.
62. Delegated legislation shall not be the ordinary means of governing the country. Primary legislation is the rule; delegation is an exceptional concession. No delegated power shall be exercised beyond the scope granted by the parent Act. No subordinate instrument shall amend, suspend, repeal, or evade any constitutional statute or protected constitutional provision, alter the fiscal ceiling, impose substantial new taxation, create serious criminal offences, confer or extend emergency powers, or diminish the life, liberty, property, livelihood, rights, duties, liabilities, or constitutional position of the citizen, save where Parliament has made express, narrow, and constitutionally lawful provision.
63. Parliament shall not be asked to vote supply, approve borrowing, or authorise public commitments on information that is incomplete, materially misleading, or that omits principal liabilities, contingent obligations, or known fiscal risks.
64. No public money shall be raised, spent, diverted, pledged, or appropriated by prerogative, executive act, administrative practice, foreign undertaking, or private compact, except by or under Act of Parliament, subject to Parliament’s continuing supervision, and subject to this Constitution.
65. A standing army or permanent armed force shall not be raised, kept, enlarged, deployed within the Kingdom, or maintained in time of peace except by or under Act of Parliament, with the consent and continuing supervision of Parliament, and subject to this Constitution.
66. The armed forces shall remain subject to civil authority, the law of the land, and this Constitution.
67. No person shall be subjected to martial law, military jurisdiction, quartering, requisition, or military burden within the Kingdom except according to law, authorised by Parliament, and subject to the courts.
68. The United Kingdom shall not be committed to war, armed conflict, foreign deployment, treaty obligation, defence guarantee, military compact, or the defence of territories or interests not belonging to the United Kingdom, except with the consent of Parliament, subject to this Constitution, and, where the obligations of the realm are materially altered, to the informed consent of the people.
69. Nothing in this Article shall prevent necessary and immediate defensive action in case of invasion, attack, insurrection, or imminent danger; but Parliament shall be summoned or informed without delay, and any continuing action shall require its consent.

Sources: BR.2.1; BR.2.2; BR.2.3; BR.2.5; PR.3; PR.4; AS.2; BR.4

Article 8 — Free Parliament and Consent of the People¶

Parliament exists not merely to pass laws, but to supervise power.

70. Elections to Parliament shall be free.
71. No public authority shall interfere with the lawful election of Members of Parliament.
72. Freedom of speech, debate, and proceedings in Parliament shall not be questioned or impeached in any court or place outside Parliament.
73. The people have the right to petition Parliament, the Crown, Ministers, and public authorities for redress of grievances.
74. No person shall be prosecuted, punished, harassed, or disadvantaged for lawful petitioning.
75. Parliament shall meet frequently enough to redress grievances, scrutinise government, supply public money, and maintain the laws.
76. Parliament’s primary constitutional function is the scrutiny of the executive, the control of supply, the redress of grievances of the people, and the maintenance of the law. Legislation shall be necessary, proportionate and intelligible. The time and procedure of Parliament shall be organised so that its supervisory function is not displaced at the convenience of the executive.
77. No Minister, Parliament, public authority, treaty, agreement, compact, external undertaking, or delegated power shall transfer, surrender, suspend, or materially diminish the constitutional authority of Parliament, the jurisdiction of the courts, the territory of the Kingdom, the command of the armed forces, the rights and liberties of the people, or the enduring self-government of the realm, except according to this Constitution and with the informed consent of the people.
78. No Parliament may bind its successors, extend its own term, alter the franchise, postpone a general election, or change the composition of Parliament except according to this Constitution and with the informed consent of the people.
79. Where disagreement between the House of Commons and the New House of Lords concerns ordinary legislation, Commons primacy may operate according to law after due delay and second consideration. Where disagreement concerns constitutional legislation, alteration of the fiscal ceiling, electoral law, the duration or composition of Parliament, emergency powers, treaty subordination, ancient liberties, or other fundamental matters, no one House shall prevail by unilateral override; both Houses shall agree or the people shall be consulted according to law.

Sources: BR.2.4; BR.2.6; BR.2.7; BR.2.10; BR.3; BR.4; AS.4

Article 9 — Accountability of Public Officers¶

80. Every Minister, officer, servant, contractor, agent, or body exercising public power shall be accountable according to law.
81. No public body exercising statutory powers, spending public money, or performing functions on behalf of the Crown shall be treated as constitutionally independent of ministerial accountability. Every such body shall be answerable through a named minister who shall be responsible to Parliament for its conduct. Operational independence shall not become constitutional independence.
82. Parliamentary privilege protects the Member as a member of Parliament. It shall not shield the Minister in office from personal accountability for deliberate unlawfulness, serious breach of duty, or corrupt or dishonest conduct in the exercise of executive power.
83. Every person entrusted with public office holds that office as a duty of service, and shall be answerable for the faithful discharge thereof according to law, conscience, truth, and the justice and mercy required of Christian government.
84. Obedience to superior instruction shall not excuse unlawful imprisonment, unlawful seizure, unlawful taxation, unlawful punishment, or deliberate evasion of the courts.
85. Any public officer who knowingly frustrates habeas corpus, conceals the true cause of detention, transfers a person to evade judicial supervision, or detains a person contrary to court order shall be personally answerable in law.
86. No pardon, indemnity, internal policy, administrative scheme, or public immunity shall prevent Parliament from impeaching or otherwise holding public officers to account for abuse of public power.
87. Remedies for unlawful action by public authorities shall be real, accessible, timely, and proportionate to the wrong suffered.
88. Where a public authority interferes with the liberty, property, livelihood, lawful activity, status, licence, benefit, or protected interest of any person, the burden of proof shall lie upon that authority to prove the lawful authority, necessity, proportionality, fairness, and factual basis of its action. No court or tribunal shall presume the correctness of executive action merely because it is asserted by a public authority.

Sources: CO.1; CO.2; PR.6; HC.4; AS.3; AS.5; CR.3; MC.3

Article 10 — Independence and Authority of the Courts¶

89. The courts shall be independent of the Crown, Ministers, Parliament, public authorities, private power, foreign power, and popular pressure.
90. The courts shall have jurisdiction to determine whether public power has been lawfully exercised.
91. No person shall be denied the protection of the courts by reason of prerogative, emergency, administrative convenience, delegated power, public policy, private contract, treaty, foreign arrangement, or any other device.
92. Nothing in this Article shall prevent the courts from considering foreign law, international law, comparative authority, treaty obligations, arbitral awards, or foreign judgments where it is lawful and just to do so, provided always that such material shall not displace this Constitution or the law of the land.
93. In exercising their jurisdiction, the courts shall interpret Acts, regulations, treaties, public powers, and administrative acts consistently with this Constitution and with the inherited rights and liberties preserved by Article 11.
94. The courts shall have power to grant such remedy as is necessary to preserve their jurisdiction, protect the rights and liberties of the people, and prevent the evasion of justice by foreign arrangement, private compact, administrative device, or external authority.

Sources: PR.4; HC.2; HC.3; HC.7; BR.4; AS.4

Article 11 — Preservation of Ancient Liberties¶

Our ancient rights and liberties are not government concessions.

95. The ancient and inalienable rights and liberties of the people are here preserved, including the freedom of lawful speech and expression, the freedom of peaceful assembly, the privacy of home, person, papers, and effects, the right to hold and enjoy property unencumbered, and the quiet enjoyment of lawful life, work, home, family, conscience, and association.
96. The Christian inheritance of this Kingdom, including the moral duties of truth, mercy, justice, conscience, charity, restraint of power, protection of the weak, sanctity of promise, and the equal answerability of ruler and subject before law, shall be recognised as part of the ancient constitutional inheritance of the Realm. The said Christian inheritance of this Kingdom shall be maintained in justice, mercy, truth, conscience, charity, peace, and restraint of power; and all peaceable persons, whether of the Christian religion or of any other lawful faith, shall have the protection of the law, liberty of conscience, and quiet exercise of their religion, so far as the same stands with public peace, good order, and the ancient and inalienable rights and liberties of the people.
97. The naming of particular rights, liberties, franchises, or protections in this Constitution shall not be taken to deny, diminish, disparage, or exhaust the ancient and indubitable rights and liberties of the people.
98. The ancient statutes, laws, customs, and judgments of the realm shall be read consistently with this Constitution so far as they declare, secure, or preserve the liberty of the subject and restrain arbitrary power.
99. No Act, regulation, treaty, public power, administrative act, foreign arrangement, private compact, or other device shall be presumed to abrogate, diminish, encumber, or burden the ancient and indubitable rights and liberties of the people unless such effect is expressed clearly, lawfully, constitutionally, and consistently with this Constitution.

Sources: MC.1; CO.1; CO.2; CO.3; TO.1; BR.3; AS.1; AS.4; PR.5; BR.4

Article 12 — Constitutional Supremacy¶

This Constitution is a restatement of those inalienable rights and freedoms.

100. No Act, regulation, order, prerogative act, treaty, foreign arrangement, administrative decision, public act, private compact, or other device shall be valid to the extent that it destroys, defeats, or substantially impairs the rights, liberties, and restraints declared in this Constitution.
101. Parliament may legislate within this Constitution, but may not abolish the rule of law, habeas corpus, free elections, parliamentary accountability, judicial independence, the lawful jurisdiction of the courts, or the fundamental liberty of the person.
102. Emergency powers shall be temporary, proportionate, reviewable by Parliament, subject to the courts, and subject to this Constitution.
103. The state may act quickly in a crisis, but it may not use crisis as a second constitution.
104. No emergency, treaty, foreign arrangement, administrative necessity, public policy, private compact, or other device shall authorise permanent arbitrary government.
105. This Constitution shall not be amended, repealed in whole or in part, or materially diminished except by an Act expressly so providing, which Act shall identify the specific provision to be amended or repealed and the grounds for that amendment, and which shall be subject to the constitutional provisions governing the second chamber and the consent of the people.

Sources: BR.2.1; BR.2.2; BR.3; BR.4; AS.4; AS.5; HC.2; HC.7

Article 13 — The Union, Movement, and the Laws of the Realm¶

This precious stone set in the silver sea.

106. The Union of the Kingdom shall be maintained as a lawful union of peoples, laws, courts, customs, liberties, and ancient inheritances, and not as a device for extinguishing the lawful rights of any part thereof.
107. One Parliament may legislate for the whole Kingdom, but no part of the Kingdom shall be deprived of its ancient laws, courts, customs, franchises, institutions, or civil rights except by clear Act of Parliament, consistently with this Constitution, and for the evident utility of the people thereby affected.
108. The laws, courts, and institutions of each part of the Kingdom shall continue in their lawful authority, so far as they are consistent with this Constitution and with the rights and liberties herein declared.
109. No uniformity of administration, regulation, taxation, policy, public convenience, foreign undertaking, or executive design shall be sufficient reason to overthrow ancient local law, private right, court, custom, franchise, property, or liberty.
110. Where laws are made common throughout the Kingdom, they shall be made for the better securing of justice, peace, liberty, and good government, and not for the enlargement of arbitrary power.
111. No alteration touching private right, property, inheritance, lawful calling, local court, ancient custom, or civil liberty shall be presumed from general words, but shall require plain words and shall be construed strictly in favour of the subject.
112. The subjects of every part of the Kingdom shall have free passage, commerce, residence, settlement, trade, employment, and lawful intercourse throughout the whole Realm, and shall not be treated as aliens, strangers, foreigners, or persons under disability in any part thereof.
113. No internal frontier, licence, passport, permit, toll, inhibition, exclusion, registry, administrative condition, or other impediment shall be imposed upon the lawful movement, residence, calling, trade, or intercourse of the people within the Kingdom, except by clear Act of Parliament, according to law, consistently with this Constitution, and where plainly necessary for the peace, safety, health, or justice of the Realm.
114. Nothing in this Article shall prevent lawful restraint by order of a court, lawful quarantine, the protection of private property, the prevention of crime, or such temporary and proportionate measures as are necessary for the due administration of justice.

Sources: US.1; US.2; US.3; US.4; US.5; UI.1; UI.2; MC.2; MC.3; AS.4

Closing Declaration¶

The rights and liberties declared in this Constitution are not gifts from Parliament, but the ancient inheritance of the people, confirmed and restated by Parliament and held in trust by every minister, officer, court and public authority. They are here preserved so that government may remain under law, public power may remain answerable, and the people may remain free.