From: anw@maths.nott.ac.uk (Dr A. N. Walker)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: An astonishing Guy
Date: 6 Nov 92 18:38:21 GMT
Reply-To: anw@maths.nott.ac.uk (Dr A. N. Walker)
Organization: Maths Dept., Nott'm Univ., UK.

In article <5829@balrog.ctron.com> smith@ctron.com (Larry Smith) writes:

>						   The American Bill of Rights
>is passed by _the_people_ of the United States, as an alteration to the
>document created _by_them_ which empowers the gov't _they_created_.

	Umm!  This creates a nice cozy picture of all the people in the
USA getting together in some huge field, and saying "Here, let's create
a gov't, and we'll give 'em a few rights -- anyone against?"  Well, it
wasn't *quite* like that, unless my knowledge of American history is
*completely* up the spout.  The *reality* was that a *few* people got
together, drafted things, made sure it was broadly OK, and said "Let
there be Light!".  Well, that's an exaggeration, but it's as near to
the truth as anything in your article!  And it's quite similar to what
happened at various stages in British history.

>								      The
>English Bill, on the other hand, was passed by the gov't, which rules because
>no one has successfully overthrown it,

	No;  because it was elected [admittedly in a way which we would
today regard as rather corrupt, though no worse than the ways in which
gov'ts the world over were elected in those days].

>			  The United States gov't _could_not_, in theory, pass
>a law in outright defiance of the Bill of Rights or of the Constitution in
>general - that's what the Supreme Court is _for_, to knock such laws down.

	Then how come your Constitution has *any* [let alone *lots* of]
amendments?  No doubt they are all "reasonable", but that's not the point.
The Supreme Court isn't exactly a referendum!

>   the English gov't could simply pass a new Bill or amend the old one without
>getting the approval of the governed.

	(a) The House of Commons is *elected*;  this is deemed, rightly or
wrongly, to constitute the approval of the governed.
	(b) The "English gov't", if by that you mean John Major and his
cronies, can't pass a Bill.  They have to persuade both Houses of Parliament
and the Monarch that the Bill should become an Act.  The House of Lords
includes the Law Lords, and the Monarch is guided by the Privy Council;
both of these groups of people have something of the same function as the
Supreme Court;  it would be a very unwise HoC, HoL and Monarch who went
ahead with some legislation that the LL and the PC had deemed to be
unconstitutional.  Of course, such unwisdom is theoretically possible,
but myopia in the SC is not exactly unknown either.
	(c) Currently, no British Parliament can bind its successor.
There are theoretical debates going on as to whether European Community
law "really" binds us.  So far the issue has been well and truly fudged,
but I believe that the answer is no, and there is nothing that can be
done to prevent a future government from repudiating the Treaty of Rome,
Maastricht, and anything else that Brussels, The Hague, the United Nations
and other interfering busy-bodies can hurl at us.  Too bad for those who
sign Treaties that purport to bind us in perpetuity.

>In the US, rights are _intrinsic_, in England they are _granted_.

	No matter -- they *exist*.  And *no* right is worth the paper
it's written (or unwritten) on unless it can be enforced, which means
that occasionally you, or we, have to fight to preserve them.  If we
lose the fight, that's tough cookies;  might is, ultimately, right.
But even if we win, the fact that the fight existed means that the
constitution wasn't quite as powerful as was hoped.

-- 
Andy Walker, Maths Dept., Nott'm Univ., UK.
anw@maths.nott.ac.uk
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british