A new version of Constitute is now available online. Constitute is a website for reading, searching and comparing constitutions from across the world.The new version has many new features and includes a number of new constitutions, including that of the UK. This will provide a tool for comparing extant UK constitutional laws with constitutional texts from across the globe

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7/5/2017 Constitution UK | Constitution UKhttp://blogs.lse.ac.uk/constitutionuk/2014/12/17/what-is-the-uk-constitution-find-out-with-the-new-version-of-constitute/ 1/4(Credit: Amdolu, CC by 2.0)What is the UK Constitution? Find out with the new version of ConstituteA new version of Constitute is now available online. Constitute is a website for reading, searching andcomparing constitutions from across the world.The new version has many new features and includesa number of new constitutions, including that of the UK. This will provide a tool for comparing extantUK constitutional laws with constitutional texts from across the globe. Back in September of last year, UCL’s Constitution Unit, incollaboration with the Google Ideas and the Indigo Trust,launched Constitute, a website for reading, searching andcomparing constitutions from across the world. The Constitutesite is host to the English language text of every nationalconstitution currently in force. It not only provides users withfree and easy access to these texts, but by drawing on datacollected by the Comparative Constitutions Project (CCP) overthe last 9 years, it also facilitates powerful, topic-basedsearches of over 300 common constitutional themes.Since the launch of Constitute, we have been accumulatingfeedback from our users and have now launched a significantly improved site. Among the newfeatures on the site are the ability to compare two constitutions side-by-side, the ability to pin moreitems, improved sharing of constitutional provisions and, for researchers, better access to the dataunderlying the site (for a full description of new features, see here).However, for our users in the UK, none of these changes is probably as significant as the inclusion ofthe UK’s constitution on the site. Up until now, there has been one glaring omission from theConstitute site: the constitution of the UK. As arguably one of the most influential and historicallysignificant constitutions in existence, any tool for comparing the constitutions of the world wasincomplete without the inclusion of the UK. Which is why today, we are pleased to announce that theUK’s written constitution has been added to Constitute.Defining the UK’s written constitutionIt has become the norm for countries to have codified constitutions in the form of a single writtendocument which consolidates the higher laws of the nation. Such written constitutions are the centralfocus of Constitute, yet the UK does not have a single constitutional text. It is one of only a handful ofcountries without a codified constitution – Israel, Saudi Arabia and New Zealand being the others.Practically speaking, this means that there is no single constitutional document that establishes andempowers the institutions of government and sets forth the rights of the citizens. Instead, the UK’sconstitution is spread across multiple sources, including statutes, judicial decisions, conventions andeven treaties. That said, the UK is not without a written constitution. There are a multitude ofconstitutional provisions which have been written into law in statute form. What is missing is onedocument which consolidates all such provisions.In the absence of a single constitutional document, our approach has been to treat the UK’s writtenconstitution as a series of texts. On reviewing the UK statute books, 18 different statutes wereidentified which we recognised as being constitutional in nature. These statutes all containedprovisions which defined the basic pattern of authority, either by establishing or suspending an7/5/2017 Constitution UK | Constitution UKhttp://blogs.lse.ac.uk/constitutionuk/2014/12/17/what-is-the-uk-constitution-find-out-with-the-new-version-of-constitute/ 2/4executive, legislative or judicial branch of government, or by protecting the rights and freedoms ofindividuals. The statutes identified are detailed in the following table:Act   YearMagna Carta 1297Petition of Right 1628Habeas Corpus Act 1679Bill of Rights 1689Act of Settlement 1701Union with Scotland Act 1706Union with Ireland Act 1800Parliament Act 1911 and 1949Life Peerages Act 1958European Communities Act 1972Senior Courts Act 1981Northern Ireland Act 1998Scotland Act 1998Human Rights Act 1998House of Lords Act 1999Constitutional Reform Act 2005Government of Wales Act 2006Fixed Term Parliament Act 2011 The UK constitution as presented on Constitute is a consolidation of these 18 statutes. Thisrepresents our understanding of the current written constitution that exists in the UK. Componentssuch as judicial decisions, conventions and treaties are of course a part of the wider constitutionalorder in the UK, but they fall out with the scope of the Constitute project and its objectives offacilitating comparison of constitutional documents and language. Indeed, constitutionalarrangements in all countries include conventions that, by definition, are not written down. Suchconventions are not included in Constitute in addition to a country’s codified constitution, thus tofacilitate comparison, it would be inappropriate to incorporate unwritten provisions into the UK’sconstitution.The merits of adding the UK to ConstituteThe inclusion of the UK’s written constitution on the Constitutesite provides a valuable resource for a multitude of actors. Aconsolidation of constitutional texts is available for reference byacademics, lawyers, students and citizens alike. As a result ofthe uncodified nature of the UK’s constitution, most Britishcitizens remain unaware of the contents of their constitution, orindeed where to find it. This is a situation that Constitute has nowsought to rectify, bringing the constituent parts of the UK’s writtenconstitution together in digitised form in one easily accessiblelocation. It is hoped that this will help to raise awareness of thecontents of the UK’s constitution, providing a valuable resourceto members of the public and informing citizens about the rightsand protections offered to them by their constitution, in doing soempowering them to play a larger role in the governance of theircountry.7/5/2017 Constitution UK | Constitution UKhttp://blogs.lse.ac.uk/constitutionuk/2014/12/17/what-is-the-uk-constitution-find-out-with-the-new-version-of-constitute/ 3/4(Credit: Pawel Loj, CC by 2.0)Yet Constitute seeks not only to make available the text of writtenconstitutions. It also hosts a powerful search function, allowingconstitutions to be searched for the inclusion of over 300 topics.Markers have been added throughout each constitution on thesite to identify the location of provisions relating to commonconstitutional themes. Over the last few months, work has takenplace to examine the contents of each of the UK’s constitutionalstatutes, and to add markers in the appropriate places tofacilitate inclusion in the search function. A search for ‘termlength of the second chamber’ for example, would find theappropriate provisions in the Life Peerages Act 1958 which detailthat a peerage to sit in the House of Lords is to last a person’slifetime.   The same search would also identify correspondingprovisions from other constitutions from across the world, fromCambodia’s six year term limit for Senators, to the four yearmandate of members of Bahrain’s Consultative Council. Indeed,this search would serve to highlight UK’s unusual constitutionalfeature of lifetime upper house terms.The search function is a powerful tool for the comparison of theUK’s constitutional arrangements with other constitutions from across the world. In the context ofincreasing discussion about the possibility of a codified constitution for the UK, we hope that thismight act as a useful resource, allowing lessons to be learned from existing constitutional texts.Additionally, the data underlying Constitute can be used to illustrate provisions which might beconsidered ‘missing’ from the UK’s existing constitution.  For instance, the following table illustrates15 topics commonly found in other countries’ constitutions that are omitted from the UK’s constitution:Topic Percentage of In Force Constitutions with TopicName/structure of executive(s) 98.4Mention of cabinet/ministers 96.9Requirements for birthright citizenship 88.5Leader of first chamber 88.0Selection procedure for cabinet 87.5Designation of commander in chief 79.7Legislative oversight of the executive 77.1Extraordinary legislative sessions 75.5Attorney general 74.0Referenda 73.4Removal of individual legislators 71.9Minimum age of members of first chamber 71.9Quorum for legislative sessions 71.4Representative of the state for foreign affairs 67.7Head of government selection procedure 66.7Searching for any of the topics in this table on Constitute would reveal that the UK’s constitution lacksprovisions on these topics.  However, the search would provide a sense of how other countries’constitutions cover these topics and how they might be addressed in the UK’s constitution if it wasfurther codified.Relevance to the wider debate on codificationOver the last year, there has been a significant increase in discussion about the UK’s constitution.  Inaddition to the launch of the ConstitutionUK project, the Political and Constitutional Reform7/5/2017 Constitution UK | Constitution UKhttp://blogs.lse.ac.uk/constitutionuk/2014/12/17/what-is-the-uk-constitution-find-out-with-the-new-version-of-constitute/ 4/4December 17th, 2014 | General | 0 CommentsCommittee launched a dialogue about codification of the UK’s constitution, and almost all politicalparties are now committed to holding a constitutional convention after the General Election in May. Thus, it seems likely that some constitutional change is imminent.Constitute is a powerful tool for constitutional drafting efforts that make extensive use of citizenparticipation, like ConstitutionUK.  By illustrating the constitutional laws currently in existence in theUK, participants in such projects have better knowledge about the UK’s constitution.  This knowledgecan be used to help them identify omissions from the UK’s constitution and to discover text from othercountries’ constitutions that might be applicable in the UK.  Such knowledge can also be used tomodernize the UK constitution because some topics are addressed by relatively antiquated text dueto age of some of the statutes that make up the UK’s constitution.Unlike ConstitutionUK, we do not have a position on codification of the UK’s constitution.  Instead weaim only to provide the necessary tools to allow for informed debate. If a decision is made to proceedwith the drafting of a codified constitution, we would encourage the use of Constitute to learn lessonsfrom constitutional texts from our European neighbours, and indeed from across the globe. Ultimately, these lessons will help elucidate the pros and cons of the extant arrangement versuscodification by allowing both policymakers and citizens to see clearly how the UK’s constitution stacksup against constitutions written elsewhere.View the UK’s constitution on Constitute here________________The Comparative Constitutions Project is directed by ZacharyElkins, Tom Ginsburg and James Melton.  The project seeks toinvestigate the sources and consequences of constitutionalchoices. Towards this end, the investigators are collecting dataon the formal characteristics of written constitutions, both currentand historical, for most independent states since 1789.

What is the UK Constitution? Find out with the new version of Constitute

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