eurealist.co.uk

Recently our parliamentary representatives have claimed that their own rules for parliamentary procedure form the basis of an unwritten Constitution for the British Isles. Therefore any rules they decide to change has the effect of also changing the Constitution. This is an erroneous claim, parliamentarians do not and have never had the power vested in them to change the British Constitution.

The Constitutional obligation is contracted by all Crown servants who are bound to comply with their oaths of allegiance and office in obedience to our Constitutional law. The fact that no one can sit in the Commons without first taking the oath of allegiance was confirmed recently when some Northern Irish elected members refused to take the oath, they were not allowed to take their seats.

The public trust placed in our politicians is a matter of contract and law requiring them to perform this duty. It preserves our spiritual and civil rights and properties, It creates a legal duty to maintain the Constitution at all times. It is upon these principles that powers of governance are founded.

Parliament has never been vested with absolute power; such abuse of power as featured in the divine right of kings was abolished by the settlement of 1689. This contracted the Monarchy and government to the Constitutional constraint of limited and defined power and remains in force today and may not be lawfully ignored or overturned. The removal of the divine right of kings did not give divine right to parliamentarians.

The settlement of the Glorious Revolution 1689 reasserted ’supremacy’ of legitimate power in the ‘rule of law’. It did not give supremacy to the Monarch or to Parliament, the Prime Minister, the Executive or the Crown in Parliament. It sought to maintain the power in ‘the rule of law’ and uphold the liberty of the people. It laid down some of the people’s basic rights. These rights were fixed so that Parliament’s concern is perpetually and independently to maintain them and not to weaken them.

No Parliament can ever legitimately get round the constitution. The contract of our Constitution utterly forbids any encroachments upon its provisions. Thus our Constitution lays down the fundamental duty for all in authority to follow. This duty has always been a requirement to holding any office of the Crown and is designed to protect the people from unconstitutional assertions of power. The rule of law enshrines accountability in the administration with ultimate enforcement in the hands of the people, not those who govern.

The freedom of self-determination under our own law is our guaranteed birthright. It is not something for mere transitory politicians or for that matter any one generation to give away even by referendum. The rule of law itself is guaranteed to us by contract for eternity. It is bound by the law to be the only means by which we may be governed.

The misconception that Parliament rightfully enjoys unencumbered power now threatens entirely to emasculate our Constitution and the rule of law itself.

Autocracy and authoritarianism like all despotic powers will prosper where the ability to legislate and the power to enforce, fall into solitary hands or that of an unaccountable executive or body. To overcome this trap into which so many nations have fallen, our Constitution has evolved with separation of powers designed to provide vital security against oppression.

Three fundamental divisions of our Constitution are:
1. Independence of the judiciary,
2. Presumption of innocence and habeas corpus with the right to trial by jury,
3. Constitutional limitation of power imposed on the Crown and Parliament. (eg. Coronation Oath / Bill of Rights)

A basic principle of a constitution is to provide a fixed standard by which the constitutionality of power asserted may be checked and redressed if found wanting.

To ensure the supremacy of the rule of law it is essential to have autonomous judges who are not part of the legislature. Where a judiciary and legislature are united, subjugation may take hold especially when those who govern decide to pass judgement in their own cause, how can a judge sit in judgement on himself.