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156-595: In the British context, whig historians emphasize the rise of constitutional government , personal freedoms and scientific progress . The term is often applied generally (and pejoratively ) to histories that present the past as the inexorable march of progress towards enlightenment. The term is also used extensively in the history of science to refer to historiography that focuses on the successful chains of theories and experiments that led to present-day theories, while ignoring failed theories and dead ends. Whig history laid

312-457: A governor-general ) formally appoints as the head of government whoever commands the confidence of the lower or sole house of the legislature and invites him or her to form a government. In the UK, this is known as kissing hands . Although the dissolution of the legislature and the call for new elections is formally performed by the head of state, the head of state, by convention, acts according to

468-420: A semi-parliamentary system . The Westminster system has a very distinct appearance when functioning, with many British customs incorporated into day-to-day government function. A Westminster-style parliament is usually a long, rectangular room, with two rows of seats and desks on either side. Many chambers connect the opposing rows, either with a perpendicular row of seats and desks at the furthermost point from

624-467: A Good Thing. Thus the rebels of 1837 were quite literally on the wrong track. They lost because they had to lose; they were not simply overwhelmed by superior force, they were justly chastised by the God of History. In The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (1986), John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler identify whiggishness with a teleological principle of convergence in history to liberal democracy . This

780-473: A Raleigh lecture, he implied that the "whig historians" really were Whigs (i.e. associated with the Whig party or its Liberal successor) and had written centrist histories that were "good history despite their enthusiasm for Gladstonian or Liberal Unionist causes"; on introduction the term was mostly approbatory, unlike Butterfield's later use, since Fisher applauded Macaulay 's "instructive and illuminating" history. By

936-500: A certain sensibility towards the past, the sensibility which studies the past 'for the sake of the past', which delights in the concrete and the complex, which 'goes out to meet the past', which searches for 'unlikenesses between past and present ' ". A decade later however, if under wartime pressure from the Second World War , Butterfield would note of the Whig interpretation that "whatever it may have done to our history, it has had

1092-405: A constitution in general terms was "the arrangement of the offices in a state". In his works Constitution of Athens , Politics , and Nicomachean Ethics , he explores different constitutions of his day, including those of Athens, Sparta , and Carthage . He classified both what he regarded as good and what he regarded as bad constitutions, and came to the conclusion that the best constitution

1248-569: A constitution since 1789 is approximately 19 years. The term constitution comes through French from the Latin word constitutio , used for regulations and orders, such as the imperial enactments ( constitutiones principis : edicta, mandata, decreta, rescripta). Later, the term was widely used in canon law for an important determination, especially a decree issued by the Pope , now referred to as an apostolic constitution . William Blackstone used

1404-521: A consultative body. In other Westminster countries, however, the upper house can sometimes exercise considerable power, as is the case for the Australian Senate. Some Westminster-derived parliaments are unicameral for two reasons: Hong Kong , a former British crown colony and currently a special administrative region of the People's Republic of China , has a unicameral Legislative Council . While

1560-424: A dead civilization, on the other a determination to make history say something different for the post-war generation—worked between them to put whig susceptibilities between a rock and a hard place. Bentley also speculates that 19th-century British historiography took the form of an indirect social history which "attempted to embrace society by absorbing it into the history of the state", a project gravely disrupted by

1716-505: A federal government at any time, loss of supply is sometimes, controversially, considered a suitable trigger for a dismissal (such as with the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis ). This is controversial because it conflicts with the Westminster tradition of government by a party with the confidence of the lower house (not an upper house like the Senate). Some political scientists have held that

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1872-779: A history of the Glorious Revolution of 1688, but only managed the first year of James II 's reign. A fragment was published in 1808. James Mackintosh then sought to write a Whig history of the Glorious Revolution, published in 1834 as the History of the Revolution in England in 1688 . Hume still dominated English historiography, but this changed when Thomas Babington Macaulay entered the field, utilising Fox and Mackintosh's work and manuscript collections. Macaulay's History of England

2028-402: A legislature, court cases, and treaties. Constitutions concern different levels of organizations, from sovereign countries to companies and unincorporated associations . A treaty that establishes an international organization is also its constitution, in that it would define how that organization is constituted. Within states , a constitution defines the principles upon which the state

2184-423: A mathematical framework becomes "an important milestone on the road to the mathematization of economics" in a story told by the victorious. Yet "those who do not agree that such mathematization is a good thing could argue that the mathematical developments... represent a regression rather than a progression". The introduction of rational expectations similarly carries implicit hindsight bias : people who disagree on

2340-473: A means of advising, consulting and warning ministers in their actions. Such a practice takes place in the United Kingdom and India. In the UK, the sovereign holds confidential weekly meetings with the prime minister to discuss governmental policy and to offer his or her opinions and advice on issues of the day. In India, the prime minister is constitutionally bound to hold regular sessions with the president, in

2496-471: A morality play: that "[the whig historian imagines himself] inconclusive unless he can give a verdict; and studying Protestant and Catholic in the 16th century he feels that loose threads are still left hanging unless he can show which party was in the right". Butterfield instead advances a view of history stressing the accidental and contingent nature of events rather than some kind of inevitable and structural shift. Moreover, he called upon historians "to evoke

2652-501: A necessarily progressive or teleological course, though he did not employ the term "Whig history". "The danger affects both the content of the [progressive] tradition and its receivers. The same threat hangs over both: that of becoming a tool of the ruling classes. In every era the attempt must be made anew to wrest tradition away from a conformism that is about to overpower it." Regarding Canada, Allan Greer argues: The interpretive schemes that dominated Canadian historical writing through

2808-584: A period of more than four hundred years, an important aspect of the constitutional structure of the Holy Roman Empire . In China , the Hongwu Emperor created and refined a document he called Ancestral Injunctions (first published in 1375, revised twice more before he died in 1398). These rules served as a constitution for the Ming dynasty for the next 250 years. The oldest written document still governing

2964-459: A power similar to that held in the UK until 1911 by the House of Lords , which has since then been impossible, in the Westminster system. A government that has lost supply is severely restricted in its abilities to act; unless a solution can be negotiated and supply can be restored, such an occurrence would normally trigger a federal election. Since the governor-general , technically speaking, can dismiss

3120-464: A recognisable modern form. The First World War , however, did substantial damage to whig history's fundamental assumption of progress and improvement: Accelerated by the sceptical power of a new breed of historian epitomized in the brilliance of F. W. Maitland, whiggery had begun its turn downwards (we are told) and met its Waterloo on the Somme ... [T]win thrusts—on the one hand cultural despair in face of

3276-417: A similar manner to the aforementioned British practice. In essence, the head of state, as the theoretical executive authority, "reigns but does not rule". This phrase means that the head of state's role in government is generally ceremonial and as a result does not directly institute executive powers. The reserve powers of the head of state are sufficient to ensure compliance with some of their wishes. However,

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3432-826: A single code until the Codex Theodosianus (438 AD); later, in the Eastern Empire, the Codex repetitæ prælectionis (534) was highly influential throughout Europe. This was followed in the east by the Ecloga of Leo III the Isaurian (740) and the Basilica of Basil I (878). The Edicts of Ashoka established constitutional principles for the 3rd century BC Maurya king's rule in India . For constitutional principles almost lost to antiquity, see

3588-451: A sovereign nation today is that of San Marino . The Leges Statutae Republicae Sancti Marini was written in Latin and consists of six books. The first book, with 62 articles, establishes councils, courts, various executive officers, and the powers assigned to them. The remaining books cover criminal and civil law and judicial procedures and remedies. Written in 1600, the document was based upon

3744-464: A special pedigree, one that instilled a distinctive temper in the English nation (as whigs liked to call it) and an approach to the world [which] issued in law and lent legal precedent a role in preserving or extending the freedoms of Englishmen". Paul Rapin de Thoyras 's history of England, published in 1723, became "the classic Whig history" for the first half of the eighteenth century. Rapin claimed that

3900-529: A state council consisting of 21 members while executive authority was vested in the office of " Lord Protector of the Commonwealth ." This position was designated as a non-hereditary life appointment. The Instrument also required the calling of triennial Parliaments , with each sitting for at least five months. The Instrument of Government was replaced in May 1657 by England's second, and last, codified constitution,

4056-462: A statute or statutory provision, it might have been adopted according to the procedures for adopting legislation. Sometimes the problem is not that a statute is unconstitutional, but that the application of it is, on a particular occasion, and a court may decide that while there are ways it could be applied that are constitutional, that instance was not allowed or legitimate. In such a case, only that application may be ruled unconstitutional. Historically,

4212-502: A tool to prise open the mind of medieval men". Blaas, in Continuity and Anachronism (1978) discerns new methods in the work of J. H. Round, F. W. Maitland and A. F. Pollard; Bentley believes that their work "contained the origins of much twentieth-century [historical] thinking in England". Marwick also positively mentions Gardiner, Seeley, Lord Acton, and T. F. Tout as transforming the teaching and study of history at British universities into

4368-476: A wonderful effect on our politics....In every Englishman there is hidden something of a whig that seems to tug at the heart-strings". Butterfield's formulation has subsequently received much attention and the kind of historical writing he argued against in generalized terms is no longer academically respectable. Despite its polemical success, Butterfield's celebrated book was criticized by David Cannadine as "slight, confused, repetitive and superficial". However, of

4524-428: Is a constitutional monarch ; he or she abides by the advice of his or her ministers, except when executing reserve powers in times of crisis. The sovereign's power to appoint and dismiss governments, appoint cabinet ministers to serve in the government, appoint diplomats , declare war , and to sign treaties (among other powers de jure held by the sovereign) is known as the royal prerogative , which in modern times

4680-487: Is a type of parliamentary government that incorporates a series of procedures for operating a legislature , first developed in England . Key aspects of the system include an executive branch made up of members of the legislature, and that is responsible to the legislature; the presence of parliamentary opposition parties; and a ceremonial head of state who is separate from the head of government . The term derives from

4836-401: Is based, the procedure in which laws are made and by whom. Some constitutions, especially codified constitutions, also act as limiters of state power, by establishing lines which a state's rulers cannot cross, such as fundamental rights . Changes to constitutions frequently require consensus or supermajority . The Constitution of India is the longest written constitution of any country in

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4992-633: Is considered part of the compilation of Constitutions) until 1716, when Philip V of Spain gave the Nueva Planta decrees , finishing with the historical laws of Catalonia . These Constitutions were usually made formally as a royal initiative, but required for its approval or repeal the favorable vote of the Catalan Courts , the medieval antecedent of the modern Parliaments. These laws, like other modern constitutions, had preeminence over other laws, and they could not be contradicted by mere decrees or edicts of

5148-567: Is especially found in the writings of scientists and general historians, while this whiggish tendency is commonly opposed by professional historians of science. Nicholas Jardine describes the changing attitude to whiggishness this way: By the mid-1970s, it had become commonplace among historians of science to employ the terms "Whig" and "Whiggish", often accompanied by one or more of "hagiographic", "internalist", "triumphalist", even "positivist", to denigrate grand narratives of scientific progress. At one level there is, indeed, an obvious parallel with

5304-500: Is exceptional because the government faces a fully elected upper house, the Senate , which must be willing to pass all its legislation. Although government is formed in the lower house, the House of Representatives, the support of the Senate is necessary in order to govern. The Australian Senate is unusual in that it maintains an ability to withhold supply from the government of the day –

5460-529: Is exercised by the sovereign solely on the advice of the Prime Minister. This custom also occurs in other countries are regions around the world using the Westminster System, as a legacy of British colonial rule . In Commonwealth realms such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the day-to-day functions that would be exercised by the sovereign personally in the United Kingdom are instead exercised by

5616-413: Is found to be beyond power will be "invalid" and of no force; this applies to primary legislation, requiring constitutional authorization, and secondary legislation, ordinarily requiring statutory authorization. In this context, "within power", intra vires , "authorized" and "valid" have the same meaning; as do "beyond power", ultra vires , "not authorized" and "invalid". In most but not all modern states

5772-513: Is imminent, a lot of time is taken up in the conversations of politicians and in the news media, speculating on who will, or will not, be moved in and out of the Cabinet by the Prime Minister, because the appointment of ministers to the Cabinet, and threat of dismissal from the Cabinet, is the single most powerful constitutional power which a Prime Minister has in the political control of the Government in

5928-447: Is in line with what Barrow and Tipler call the " anthropic principle ". James A. Hijiya points out the persistence of whiggish history in history textbooks. In the debate over Britishness, David Marquand praised the whig approach on the grounds that "ordered freedom and evolutionary progress have been among the hallmarks of modern British history, and they should command respect". Historian Edward J. Larson in his book Summer for

6084-410: Is nominally exercised in their name. The head of government , usually called the prime minister or premier , will ideally have the support of a majority in the responsible house, and must, in any case, be able to ensure the existence of no absolute majority against the government. If the parliament passes a motion of no confidence , or refuses to pass an important bill such as the budget , then

6240-612: Is obliged to resign, e.g., when a re-elected Legislative Council passes again a bill that he or she had refused to sign. The waters of the Thames and of the Potomac both flow into Lake Burley Griffin . Australian constitutional law is, in many respects, a unique hybrid with influences from the United States Constitution as well as from the traditions and conventions of the Westminster system and some indigenous features. Australia

6396-634: Is often ascribed a teleological view of history with an inexorable trajectory in the direction of progress. Marxists have had varied views on Whig history. The traditional inheritance of Hegel, interpreted through Engels ' articulation of historical materialism , implied that history progressed from a "primitive communism", through slave societies, feudal societies, capitalism, and finally to socialism and communism. However, contemporary Marxists, such as Ellen Meiksins Wood , have aggressively challenged those assumptions as deterministic and ahistorical. Walter Benjamin criticized conception of history which assumed

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6552-431: Is to be governed. When these principles are written down into a single document or set of legal documents, those documents may be said to embody a written constitution ; if they are encompassed in a single comprehensive document, it is said to embody a codified constitution . The Constitution of the United Kingdom is a notable example of an uncodified constitution ; it is instead written in numerous fundamental acts of

6708-434: Is too much readiness to accept Butterfield's classic formulation from 1931 as definitive. In Britain, whig history is a view of British history that sees it as a "steady evolution of British parliamentary institutions, benevolently watched over by Whig aristocrats, and steadily spreading social progress and prosperity". It described a "continuity of institutions and practices since Anglo-Saxon times that lent to English history

6864-472: Is usually where ministers or members of the house come to speak. Other ceremonies sometimes associated with the Westminster system include an annual Speech from the Throne (or equivalent thereof) in which the head of state gives a special address (written by the government) to parliament about what kind of policies to expect in the coming year, and lengthy State Opening of Parliament ceremonies that often involve

7020-675: The Australian system of government was consciously devised as a blend or hybrid of the Westminster and the United States systems of government , especially since the Australian Senate is a powerful upper house like the US Senate; this notion is expressed in the nickname "the Washminster mutation". The ability of upper houses to block supply also features in the parliaments of most Australian states . The Australian system has also been referred to as

7176-538: The British Empire , upon gaining self-government (with the exception of the United States and Cyprus ), beginning with the first of the Canadian provinces in 1848 and the six Australian colonies between 1855 and 1890. It is the form of government bequeathed to New Zealand , and former British Hong Kong . Israel adopted a largely Westminster-inspired system of government upon declaring independence from

7332-469: The British Mandate of Palestine . However, some former colonies have since adopted either the presidential system ( Nigeria for example) or a hybrid system (like South Africa ) as their form of government. The Westminster system of government may include some of the following features: Most of the procedures of the Westminster system originated with the conventions , practices, and precedents of

7488-457: The British prime minister wished to dissolve Parliament in order for a general election to take place, the prime minister is constitutionally bound to request permission from the sovereign in order to attain such a wish. However, the sovereign in modern times has virtually always followed the advice of their prime minister without their own agency, this owes to the fact that the British sovereign

7644-563: The Byzantine emperors ' Novellae (most were taken from Justinian 's Novellae). The Nomocanon was a completely new compilation of civil and canonical regulations, taken from Byzantine sources but completed and reformed by St. Sava to function properly in Serbia. Besides decrees that organized the life of the church, there are various norms regarding civil life; most of these were taken from Prohiron. Legal transplants of Roman - Byzantine law became

7800-611: The Code of Ur-Nammu of Ur (c. 2050 BC). Some of the better-known ancient law codes are the code of Lipit-Ishtar of Isin , the code of Hammurabi of Babylonia , the Hittite code , the Assyrian code , and Mosaic law . In 621 BC, a scribe named Draco codified the oral laws of the city-state of Athens ; this code prescribed the death penalty for many offenses (thus creating the modern term "draconian" for very strict rules). In 594 BC, Solon ,

7956-543: The Constitution of the United States of America (U.S. Constitution), which is the oldest and shortest written constitution still in force, close to 800 constitutions have been adopted and subsequently amended around the world by independent states. In the late 18th century, Thomas Jefferson predicted that a period of 20 years would be the optimal time for any constitution to be still in force, since "the earth belongs to

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8112-522: The Glorious Revolution . This view of events was substantially challenged: Maitland discovered in 1893 that the early "parliaments" had "no hint of operating as a representative body but resembled instead a meeting of the King's Council, called to meet the king's purposes; it passed no 'legislation', but rather considered petitions or 'bills' as though acting as an ultimate court of justice". Albert Pollard , writing in 1920, also shot through much of Stubbs' ideas on

8268-652: The Governor remained the head of government until the transfer of sovereignty in 1997, when the role was replaced by the Chief Executive . Secretaries had remained to be chosen by the Chief Executive not from the Legislative Council, and their appointments need not be approved by the Legislative Council. Although essentially more presidential than parliamentary, the Legislative Council had inherited many elements of

8424-716: The Grandees of the New Model Army had presented the Heads of Proposals as their alternative to the more radical Agreement of the People presented by the Agitators and their civilian supporters at the Putney Debates . The Instrument of Government was adopted by Parliament on 15 December 1653, and Oliver Cromwell was installed as Lord Protector on the following day. The constitution set up

8580-499: The House of Commons (under various names), comprising local, elected representatives of the people (with the only exception being elected entirely by nationwide Proportional Representation). Most also have a smaller upper house, which is made up of members chosen by various methods: In the UK, the lower house is the de facto legislative body, while the upper house practices restraint in exercising its constitutional powers and serves as

8736-454: The House of Commons . The Nomocanon of Saint Sava ( Serbian : Законоправило/Zakonopravilo ) was the first Serbian constitution from 1219. St. Sava's Nomocanon was the compilation of civil law , based on Roman Law , and canon law , based on Ecumenical Councils . Its basic purpose was to organize the functioning of the young Serbian kingdom and the Serbian church . Saint Sava began

8892-565: The Humble Petition and Advice , proposed by Sir Christopher Packe . The Petition offered hereditary monarchy to Oliver Cromwell , asserted Parliament 's control over issuing new taxation , provided an independent council to advise the king and safeguarded "Triennial" meetings of Parliament. A modified version of the Humble Petition with the clause on kingship removed was ratified on 25 May. This finally met its demise in conjunction with

9048-610: The Institute of Historical Research ". It has been argued that the historiography of science is "riddled with Whiggish history". Like other whig histories, whig history of science tends to divide historical actors into "good guys" who are on the side of truth (as is now known), and "bad guys" who opposed the emergence of these truths because of ignorance or bias. Science is seen as emerging from "a series of victories over pre-scientific thinking". From this whiggish perspective, Ptolemy would be criticized because his astronomical system placed

9204-633: The Instrument of Government included elements incorporated from an earlier document " Heads of Proposals ", which had been agreed to by the Army Council in 1647, as a set of propositions intended to be a basis for a constitutional settlement after King Charles I was defeated in the First English Civil War . Charles had rejected the propositions, but before the start of the Second Civil War,

9360-696: The Lord High Chancellor of Sweden Axel Oxenstierna after the death of king Gustavus Adolphus . This can be seen as the first written constitution adopted by a modern state. In 1639, the Colony of Connecticut adopted the Fundamental Orders , which was the first North American constitution. It is the basis for every new Connecticut constitution since, and is also the reason for Connecticut 's nickname, "the Constitution State ". On 4 January 1649,

9516-580: The Palace of Westminster , which has been the seat of the Westminster Parliament in England and later the United Kingdom since the 13th century. The Westminster system is often contrasted with the presidential system that originated in the United States , or with the semi-presidential system, based on the government of France . The Westminster system is used, or was once used, in the national and subnational legislatures of most former colonies of

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9672-569: The Parliament of the United Kingdom , which form a part of what is known as the Constitution of the United Kingdom . Unlike the uncodified British constitution, most countries that use the Westminster system have codified the system, at least in part, in a written constitution . However, uncodified conventions, practices, and precedents continue to play a significant role in most countries, as many constitutions do not specify important elements of procedure. For example, some older constitutions using

9828-452: The Reformation which "are inclined to write sometimes as though Protestantism in itself was somehow constituted to assist [the process of secularisation]" and misconceptions that the British constitution was created by Whigs opposed by Tories rather than created by compromise and interplay mediated by then-political contingencies. He also felt that whig history viewed the world in terms of

9984-601: The Rump Parliament declared "that the people are, under God, the original of all just power; that the Commons of England, being chosen by and representing the people, have the supreme power in this nation". The English Protectorate set up by Oliver Cromwell after the English Civil War promulgated the first detailed written constitution adopted by a modern state; it was called the Instrument of Government . This formed

10140-1033: The Salic Law of the Franks , all written soon after 500. In 506, the Breviarum or "Lex Romana" of Alaric II , king of the Visigoths, adopted and consolidated the Codex Theodosianus together with assorted earlier Roman laws. Systems that appeared somewhat later include the Edictum Rothari of the Lombards (643), the Lex Visigothorum (654), the Lex Alamannorum (730), and the Lex Frisionum (c. 785). These continental codes were all composed in Latin, while Anglo-Saxon

10296-413: The Statuti Comunali (Town Statute) of 1300, itself influenced by the Codex Justinianus , and it remains in force today. In 1392 the Carta de Logu was legal code of the Giudicato of Arborea promulgated by the giudicessa Eleanor . It was in force in Sardinia until it was superseded by the code of Charles Felix in April 1827. The Carta was a work of great importance in Sardinian history. It

10452-492: The Sumerian king Urukagina of Lagash c.  2300 BC . Perhaps the earliest prototype for a law of government, this document itself has not yet been discovered; however it is known that it allowed some rights to his citizens. For example, it is known that it relieved tax for widows and orphans, and protected the poor from the usury of the rich. After that, many governments ruled by special codes of written laws. The oldest such document still known to exist seems to be

10608-444: The Ten Principles for the Establishment of a Monolithic Ideological System are said to have eclipsed the constitution in importance as a frame of government in practice. Developing a legal and political tradition of strict adherence to constitutional provisions is considered foundational to the rule of law . Excavations in modern-day Iraq by Ernest de Sarzec in 1877 found evidence of the earliest known code of justice , issued by

10764-401: The code of Manu . Many of the Germanic peoples that filled the power vacuum left by the Western Roman Empire in the Early Middle Ages codified their laws. One of the first of these Germanic law codes to be written was the Visigothic Code of Euric (471 AD). This was followed by the Lex Burgundionum , applying separate codes for Germans and for Romans; the Pactus Alamannorum ; and

10920-463: The governor-general . In such nations, the prime minister is obligated to formally seek permission from the governor-general when implementing executive decisions, in a manner similar to the British system. An analogous scenario also exists in republics in the Commonwealth of Nations , such as India or Trinidad and Tobago , where there is a president who functions similarly to a governor-general. An unusual case lies in Israel and Japan , where

11076-400: The head of government. The pattern of executive functions within a Westminster system is quite complex. In essence, the head of state , usually a monarch or president, is a ceremonial figurehead who is the theoretical, nominal or de jure source of executive power within the system. In practice, such a figure does not actively exercise executive powers, even though executive authority

11232-485: The prime minister and the Council of Ministers . In Israel , however, executive power is vested de jure and de facto in the cabinet and the president is de jure and de facto a ceremonial figurehead. As an example, the prime minister and cabinet (as the de facto executive body in the system) generally must seek the permission of the head of state when carrying out executive functions. If, for instance

11388-402: The Cabinet are collectively seen as responsible for government policy, a policy termed cabinet collective responsibility . All Cabinet decisions are made by consensus, a vote is rarely taken in a Cabinet meeting. All ministers, whether senior and in the Cabinet, or junior ministers, must support the policy of the government publicly regardless of any private reservations. When a Cabinet reshuffle

11544-458: The Church of England, Stubbs saw the original model for the development and maintenance of English liberties. Stubb's history began with an imagined Anglo-Saxon past into which representative parliamentary institutions emerged and fought for control with the absolutist crown in various stages (including overreaches in during the English Civil War ) before uniting in "nation, church, peers and people" in

11700-603: The Earth at the center of the universe while Aristarchus would be praised because he placed the Sun at the center of the Solar System . This kind of evaluation ignores historical background and the evidence that was available at a particular time: Did Aristarchus have evidence to support his idea that the Sun was at the center? Were there good reasons to reject Ptolemy's system before the sixteenth century? The writing of Whig history of science

11856-473: The English had preserved their ancient constitution against the absolutist tendencies of the Stuarts . However, Rapin's history lost its place as the standard history of England in the late 18th century and early 19th century to that of David Hume . According to Arthur Marwick , however, Henry Hallam was the first whig historian, publishing Constitutional History of England in 1827, which "greatly exaggerated

12012-584: The English tradition more broadly, Cannadine wrote: It was fiercely partisan and righteously judgemental, dividing the personnel of the past into the good and the bad. And it did so on the basis of the marked preference for liberal and progressive causes, rather than conservative and reactionary ones ... Whig history was, in short, an extremely biased view of the past: eager to hand out moral judgements, and distorted by teleology, anachronism and present-mindedness. E. H. Carr in What Is History? (1961) gave

12168-490: The First World War and renewed questions on "the pretensions of the state as an avatar of social harmony". He, however, notes that whig history has not died "outside the academy" and lives on partially in criticism of history as something published in "a row of small-minded monographs written by authors calling themselves 'doctor', whose life-experience and sense of English culture extended no further than taking cups of tea in

12324-628: The Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion (1997) challenged a whiggish view of the Scopes trial . The book won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1998. Constitutional government A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity , organization or other type of entity , and commonly determines how that entity

12480-536: The Legislative Councils in British Australasian and North American colonies were unelected upper houses and some of them had since abolished themselves, the Legislative Council of Hong Kong has remained the sole chamber and had in 1995 evolved into a fully elected house, yet only part of the seats are returned by universal suffrage. Responsible government was never granted during British colonial rule, and

12636-484: The Speaker's Chair at the opposite end of the chamber (e.g. UK House of Lords or Israel Knesset) or the rows of chairs and desks are rounded at the end, opposite to the Speaker's Chair (e.g. Australian chambers, Ireland, South Africa, India). The chairs in which both the government and opposition sit, are positioned so that the two rows are facing each other. This arrangement is said to have derived from an early Parliament which

12792-430: The Westminster system do not mention the existence of the cabinet or the prime minister, because these offices were taken for granted by the authors of these constitutions. Sometimes these conventions, reserve powers , and other influences collide in times of crisis and in such times the weaknesses of the unwritten aspects of the Westminster system, as well as the strengths of the Westminster system's flexibility, are put to

12948-490: The Westminster system, including parliamentary powers, privileges and immunity, and the right to conduct inquiries, amongst others. Minutes are known as Hansards, and the theme colour of the meeting chamber is red as in other upper houses. Government secretaries and other officials are seated on the right hand side of the President in the chamber. The Chief Executive may dissolve the Legislative Council under certain conditions, and

13104-416: The Westminster system. The Official Opposition and other major political parties not in the Government, will mirror the governmental organisation with their own Shadow Cabinet made up of Shadow Ministers . In a Westminster system, some members of parliament are elected by popular vote, while others are appointed. Nearly all Westminster-based parliaments have a lower house with powers based on those of

13260-617: The Wise the Grand Prince of Kiev , was granted to Great Novgorod around 1017, and in 1054 was incorporated into the Russkaya Pravda ; it became the law for all of Kievan Rus' . It survived only in later editions of the 15th century. In England, Henry I's proclamation of the Charter of Liberties in 1100 bound the king for the first time in his treatment of the clergy and the nobility. This idea

13416-399: The attacks on Whig constitutional history in the opening decades of the century. For, as P. B. M. Blaas has shown, those earlier attacks were part and parcel of a more general onslaught in the name of an autonomous, professional and scientific history, on popular, partisan and moralising historiography. Similarly, ... For post-WWII champions of the newly professionalized history of science

13572-477: The basis of government for the short-lived republic from 1653 to 1657 by providing a legal rationale for the increasing power of Cromwell after Parliament consistently failed to govern effectively. Most of the concepts and ideas embedded into modern constitutional theory, especially bicameralism , separation of powers , the written constitution, and judicial review , can be traced back to the experiments of that period. Drafted by Major-General John Lambert in 1653,

13728-628: The basis of the Serbian medieval law. The essence of Zakonopravilo was based on Corpus Iuris Civilis . Stefan Dušan , emperor of Serbs and Greeks, enacted Dušan's Code ( Serbian : Душанов Законик/Dušanov Zakonik ) in Serbia , in two state congresses: in 1349 in Skopje and in 1354 in Serres . It regulated all social spheres, so it was the second Serbian constitution, after St. Sava's Nomocanon (Zakonopravilo). The Code

13884-470: The basis of universal consensus of all chiefs following discussions that were initiated by a single nation. The position of Sachem descends through families and are allocated by the senior female clan heads, though, prior to the filling of the position, candidacy is ultimately democratically decided by the community itself. In 1634 the Kingdom of Sweden adopted the 1634 Instrument of Government , drawn up under

14040-655: The book the backhanded compliment of being "a remarkable book in many ways" noting that "though it denounced the whig interpretation over some 130 pages, it did not... name a single whig except Fox , who was no historian, or a single historian save Acton , who was no whig". Michael Bentley analyses Butterfield's whig theory as referring to a canon of 19th-century historians in and of England (such as William Stubbs , James Anthony Froude , E. A. Freeman , J. R. Green , W. E. H. Lecky , Lord Acton , J. R. Seeley , S. R. Gardiner , C. H. Firth and J. B. Bury ) that in fact excludes few except Thomas Carlyle . The theory identifies

14196-511: The common factors and Bentley comments: Carlyle apart, the so-called Whigs were predominantly Christian , predominantly Anglican , thinkers for whom the Reformation supplied the critical theatre of enquiry when considering the origins of modern England. When they wrote about the history of the English constitution , as so many of them did, they approached their story from the standpoint of having Good News to relate ... If they could not have found

14352-402: The constitution has supremacy over ordinary statutory law (see Uncodified constitution below); in such states when an official act is unconstitutional, i.e. it is not a power granted to the government by the constitution, that act is null and void , and the nullification is ab initio , that is, from inception, not from the date of the finding. It was never "law", even though, if it had been

14508-477: The constitution-making process either takes too long or is extremely short were non-democracies. In principle, constitutional rights are not a specific characteristic of democratic countries. Autocratic states have constitutions, such as that of North Korea , which officially grants every citizen, among other things, the freedom of expression . However, the extent to which governments abide by their own constitutional provisions varies. In North Korea, for example,

14664-432: The constitutional or statutory authority of those officials are termed "within power" (or, in Latin, intra vires ); if they do not, they are termed "beyond power" (or, in Latin, ultra vires ). For example, a students' union may be prohibited as an organization from engaging in activities not concerning students; if the union becomes involved in non-student activities, these activities are considered to be ultra vires of

14820-635: The death of Cromwell and the Restoration of the monarchy. All of the British colonies in North America that were to become the 13 original United States, adopted their own constitutions in 1776 and 1777, during the American Revolution (and before the later Articles of Confederation and United States Constitution ), with the exceptions of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts adopted its Constitution in 1780,

14976-543: The document focuses more on social morality than on institutions of government, and remains a notable early attempt at a government constitution. The Constitution of Medina ( Arabic : صحیفة المدینه , Ṣaḥīfat al-Madīna), also known as the Charter of Medina, was drafted by the Islamic prophet Muhammad after his flight ( hijra ) to Yathrib where he became political leader. It constituted a formal agreement between Muhammad and all of

15132-478: The drafting of Japan 's 1946 Constitution, the bureaucrats drafted everything in no more than a week. Japan has the oldest unamended constitution in the world. The record for the shortest overall process of drafting, adoption, and ratification of a national constitution belongs to the Romania 's 1938 constitution, which installed a royal dictatorship in less than a month. Studies showed that typically extreme cases where

15288-404: The executive as the head of government is ultimately the person from whom the head of state will take advice (by constitutional convention) on the exercise of executive power , including the appointment and dismissal of cabinet members. This results in the situation where individual cabinet members in effect serve at the pleasure of the prime minister. Thus the cabinet is strongly subordinate to

15444-410: The extent of such powers varies from one country to another and is often a matter of controversy. Such an executive arrangement first emerged in the United Kingdom. Historically, the British sovereign held and directly exercised all executive authority. George I of Great Britain (reigned 1714 to 1727) was the first British monarch to delegate some executive powers to a prime minister and a cabinet of

15600-502: The extremely influential Constitutional History of England (published between 1873–78) and became a crucial figure in the later survival and respectability of whig history. According to Reba Soffer , Stubbs was a true believer who concealed his biases, even from himself, behind the façade of a dispassionate historian translating original documents into magisterial prose. His rhetorical gifts often obscured his combination of high church Anglicanism, whig history, and civic responsibility. In

15756-457: The floor in front of the government and opposition benches that members may cross only when exiting the chamber. At one end of the room sits a large chair, for the Speaker of the House . The speaker usually wears black robes, and in some countries, a wig . Robed parliamentary clerks often sit at narrow tables between the two rows of seats, as well. These narrow tables in the centre of the chamber,

15912-799: The fold of one community – the Ummah . The precise dating of the Constitution of Medina remains debated, but generally, scholars agree it was written shortly after the Hijra (622). In Wales , the Cyfraith Hywel (Law of Hywel) was codified by Hywel Dda c. 942–950. It served as the main law code in Wales until it was superseded by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542 . The Pravda Yaroslava , originally combined by Yaroslav

16068-479: The following: One of five countries other than the UK to use a Westminster system with a native monarch , along with Japan, Lesotho, Malaysia, and Thailand. One of five countries other than the UK to use a Westminster system with a native monarch , along with Denmark, Lesotho, Malaysia, and Thailand. One of five countries other than the UK to use a Westminster system with a native monarch , along with Denmark, Japan, Malaysia, and Thailand. The Westminster system

16224-417: The formal powers of monarchs, governors-general, and presidents vary greatly from one country to another. However, as sovereigns and governors-general are not elected, and some presidents may not be directly elected by the people, they are often shielded from any public disapproval stemming from unilateral or controversial use of their powers. In many Commonwealth realms a governor-general formally represents

16380-405: The government must either resign so that a different government can be appointed or seek a parliamentary dissolution so that new general elections may be held in order to re-confirm or deny the government's mandate. Executive authority within a Westminster system is de jure exercised by the cabinet as a whole, along with more junior ministers , however, in effect, the head of government dominates

16536-411: The grandeur that they developed had they been writing half a century earlier, neither could they have supported their optimism had they lived to endure the barbarisms of the Somme and Passchendaele . Roger Scruton takes the theory underlying whig history to be centrally concerned with social progress and reaction, with the progressives shown as victors and benefactors. According to Victor Feske, there

16692-467: The groundwork for modernization theory and the resulting deployment of development aid around the world after World War II , which has sometimes been criticized as destructive to its recipients. The British historian Herbert Butterfield used the term "Whig history" in his short but influential book The Whig Interpretation of History (1931). It takes its name from the British Whigs , advocates of

16848-433: The historian in several ways. The emphasis on the inevitability of progress leads to the mistaken belief that the progressive sequence of events becomes "a line of causation ", tempting the historian to go no further to investigate the causes of historical change. The focus on the present as the goal of historical change leads the historian to a special kind of "abridgement", selecting only those events that seem important from

17004-430: The history of science. At one level, "the very term 'the history of science' has itself profoundly Whiggish implications. One may be reasonably clear what 'science' means in the 19th century and most of the 18th century. In the 17th century 'science' has very different meaning. Chemistry, for example, was then inextricably mixed up with alchemy. Before the 17th century dissecting out such a thing as 'science' in anything like

17160-453: The importance of 'parliaments' or of bodies [whig historians] thought were parliaments" while tending "to interpret all political struggles in terms of the parliamentary situation in Britain [during] the nineteenth century, in terms, that is, of Whig reformers fighting the good fight against Tory defenders of the status quo". In The History of England (1754–1761), Hume challenged whig views of

17316-572: The king. The Kouroukan Founga was a 13th-century charter of the Mali Empire in West Africa , reconstructed from oral tradition in 1988 by Siriman Kouyaté . It included the "right to life and to the preservation of physical integrity" and significant protections for women. The Golden Bull of 1356 was a decree issued by a Reichstag in Nuremberg headed by Emperor Charles IV that fixed, for

17472-402: The legal judgement of his peers, or by the law of the land. This provision became the cornerstone of English liberty after that point. The social contract in the original case was between the king and the nobility but was gradually extended to all of the people. It led to the system of Constitutional Monarchy , with further reforms shifting the balance of power from the monarchy and nobility to

17628-764: The legislative, executive, and judiciary branches, well before the publication of Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws . This Constitution also limited the executive authority of the hetman , and established a democratically elected Cossack parliament called the General Council. However, Orlyk's project for an independent Ukrainian State never materialized, and his constitution, written in exile, never went into effect. Corsican Constitutions of 1755 and 1794 were inspired by Jean-Jacques Rousseau . The latter introduced universal suffrage for property owners. Westminster system The Westminster system , or Westminster model ,

17784-603: The living, and not to the dead". Indeed, according to recent studies, the average life of any new written constitution is around 19 years. However, a great number of constitutions do not last more than 10 years, and around 10% do not last more than one year, as was the case of the French Constitution of 1791 . By contrast, some constitutions, notably that of the United States, have remained in force for several centuries, often without major revision for long periods of time. The most common reasons for these frequent changes are

17940-399: The middle decades of the twentieth century were built on the assumption that history had a discernible direction and flow. Canada was moving towards a goal in the nineteenth century; whether this endpoint was the construction of a transcontinental, commercial, and political union, the development of parliamentary government, or the preservation and resurrection of French Canada, it was certainly

18096-597: The ministers, largely because he was also the monarch of Hanover in Germany and did not speak English fluently. Over time, further arrangements continued to allow the execution of executive authority on the sovereign's behalf and more and more de facto power ended up lying in the Prime Minister's hands. Such a concept was reinforced in The English Constitution (1876) by Walter Bagehot , who distinguished between

18252-446: The modern sense of the term involves profound distortions." The science historians' rejection of whiggishness has been criticised by some scientists for failing to appreciate "the temporal depth of scientific research". Retrospectives on modern macroeconomics are generally whiggish histories. For example, the popularisation of mathematical models by Paul Samuelson 's Foundations of Economic Analysis , when viewed by economists trained in

18408-520: The monarch, who is usually absent from the realm. In such countries, the identity of the "head of state" may be unclear. In the book The English Constitution , Walter Bagehot emphasised the divide of the constitution into two components, the Dignified (that part which is symbolic) and the Efficient (the way things actually work and get done), and called the Efficient " Cabinet Government ". Members of

18564-601: The oldest still-functioning constitution of any U.S. state; while Connecticut and Rhode Island officially continued to operate under their old colonial charters, until they adopted their first state constitutions in 1818 and 1843, respectively. What is sometimes called the "enlightened constitution" model was developed by philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment such as Thomas Hobbes , Jean-Jacques Rousseau , and John Locke . The model proposed that constitutional governments should be stable, adaptable, accountable, open and should represent

18720-483: The past and the whig historians in turn attacked Hume; but they could not dent his history. In the early 19th century, some whig historians came to incorporate Hume's views, dominant for the previous fifty years. These historians were members of the New Whigs around Charles James Fox (1749–1806) and Lord Holland (1773–1840) in opposition until 1830 and so "needed a new historical philosophy". Fox himself intended to write

18876-535: The people (i.e., support democracy ). Agreements and Constitutions of Laws and Freedoms of the Zaporizian Host was written in 1710 by Pylyp Orlyk , hetman of the Zaporozhian Host . It was written to establish a free Zaporozhian-Ukrainian Republic , with the support of Charles XII of Sweden . It is notable in that it established a democratic standard for the separation of powers in government between

19032-449: The political desire for an immediate outcome and the short time devoted to the constitutional drafting process. A study in 2009 showed that the average time taken to draft a constitution is around 16 months, however there were also some extreme cases registered. For example, the Myanmar 2008 Constitution was being secretly drafted for more than 17 years, whereas at the other extreme, during

19188-570: The power of Parliament , who opposed the Tories , advocates of the power of the king. Butterfield's usage of the term was not in relation to the British or American Whig parties or Whiggism, but rather took aim at "the nineteenth-century school of historiography that praised all progress and habitually associated Protestantism with liberal views of liberty". The terms "whig" and "whiggish" are now used broadly, becoming "universal descriptors for all progressive narratives". When H. A. L. Fisher in 1928 gave

19344-424: The present point of view. He also criticised it for modernising the past: "the result [of whig history] is that to many of us [historical figures] seem much more modern than they really were, and even when we have corrected this impression by closer study we find it difficult to keep in mind the differences between their world and ours". Whig history is also criticised as having an overly dualist view with heroes on

19500-456: The presentation of a large ceremonial mace . Some legislatures retain Westminster's colour-coded chambers, with the upper houses associated with the colour red (after the House of Lords) and the lower with green (after the House of Commons). This is the case in India, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Barbados. Countries that use variations on the theme of the Westminster system, as of 2023, include

19656-420: The primary condition that it abides by the constitution's limitations. According to Scott Gordon, a political organization is constitutional to the extent that it "contain[s] institutionalized mechanisms of power control for the protection of the interests and liberties of the citizenry , including those that may be in the minority ". Activities of officials within an organization or polity that fall within

19812-475: The prime minister as they can be replaced at any time, or can be moved ("demoted") to a different portfolio in a cabinet reshuffle for "underperforming". In the United Kingdom, the sovereign theoretically holds executive authority, even though the prime minister and the cabinet effectively implement executive powers. In a parliamentary republic like India, the president is the de jure executive, even though executive powers are essentially instituted by

19968-426: The reality of agents making decisions in the manner assumed (e.g. behavioral economics ) "would not necessarily rejoice in [rational expectations'] present ascendancy". Burrow views Marxist history, with its "[supposed] anticipated terminus from which it derives its moral and political point", as "characteristically whig". One very common example of Whig history is the work of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel , to whom

20124-676: The reign of Zara Yaqob . Even so, its first recorded use in the function of a constitution (supreme law of the land) is with Sarsa Dengel beginning in 1563. The Fetha Negest remained the supreme law in Ethiopia until 1931, when a modern-style Constitution was first granted by Emperor Haile Selassie I. In the Principality of Catalonia , the Catalan constitutions were promulgated by the Court from 1283 (or even two centuries before, if Usatges of Barcelona

20280-416: The remedies for such violations have been petitions for common law writs , such as quo warranto . Scholars debate whether a constitution must necessarily be autochthonous , resulting from the nations "spirit". Hegel said "A constitution...is the work of centuries; it is the idea, the consciousness of rationality so far as that consciousness is developed in a particular nation." Since 1789, along with

20436-471: The representative and law-making powers of early English parliaments, pulling the emergence of a semi-independent House of Commons to the 1620s. Political history was the usual venue for whig history in Great Britain, but it also appears in other areas. Robert Hebert Quick (1831–1891) was one of the leaders of the Whig school of the history of education, along with G. A. N. Lowndes. In 1898, Quick explained

20592-534: The respective prime ministers have the full legal power to implement executive decisions, and presidential (in Israel) or imperial (in Japan) approval is not required; the prime ministers of these nations are fully the de jure source of executive authority, and not the head of state. The head of state will often hold meetings with the head of government and cabinet, as a means of keeping abreast of governmental policy and as

20748-675: The ruler of Athens, created the new Solonian Constitution . It eased the burden of the workers, and determined that membership of the ruling class was to be based on wealth ( plutocracy ), rather than on birth ( aristocracy ). Cleisthenes again reformed the Athenian constitution and set it on a democratic footing in 508 BC. Aristotle (c. 350 BC) was the first to make a formal distinction between ordinary law and constitutional law, establishing ideas of constitution and constitutionalism , and attempting to classify different forms of constitutional government. The most basic definition he used to describe

20904-696: The separate "dignified" and "efficient" functions of government. The sovereign should be a focal point for the nation ("dignified"), while the PM and cabinet actually undertook executive decisions ("efficient"). The electoral system is often set out in a Representation of the People Act . Common ministerial titles include parliamentary secretary and under-secretary . Ministers are supported by private secretaries and government departments are run by permanent secretaries , principal secretaries or chief secretaries . The head of state or their representative (such as

21060-481: The side of liberty and freedom against traditionalist villains opposing the inevitability of progress. It also casts an overly negative view of opposing parties to heroes described, taking such parties "to have contributed nothing to the making of the present" and at worst converting them into a "dummy that acts as a better foil to the grand whig virtues". Butterfield illustrated this by criticising views of Martin Luther and

21216-580: The significant tribes and families of Yathrib (later known as Medina ), including Muslims , Jews , and pagans . The document was drawn up with the explicit concern of bringing to an end the bitter intertribal fighting between the clans of the Aws ( Aus ) and Khazraj within Medina. To this effect it instituted a number of rights and responsibilities for the Muslim, Jewish, and pagan communities of Medina bringing them within

21372-598: The supreme law used in parts of Germany as late as 1900. Around 1240, the Coptic Egyptian Christian writer, 'Abul Fada'il Ibn al-'Assal , wrote the Fetha Negest in Arabic . 'Ibn al-Assal took his laws partly from apostolic writings and Mosaic law and partly from the former Byzantine codes. There are a few historical records claiming that this law code was translated into Ge'ez and entered Ethiopia around 1450 in

21528-414: The targets were quite different. Above all, they were out to establish a critical distance between the history of science and the teaching and promotion of the sciences. In particular, they were suspicious of the grand celebratory and didactic narratives of scientific discovery and progress that had proliferated in the inter-war years. More recently, some scholars have argued that Whig history is essential to

21684-540: The term for significant and egregious violations of public trust, of a nature and extent that the transgression would justify a revolutionary response. The term as used by Blackstone was not for a legal text, nor did he intend to include the later American concept of judicial review : "for that were to set the judicial power above that of the legislature, which would be subversive of all government". Generally, every modern written constitution confers specific powers on an organization or institutional entity, established upon

21840-489: The test. As an illustrative example, in the Australian constitutional crisis of 1975 , the Governor-General of Australia, Sir John Kerr , dismissed Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and replaced him with opposition leader Malcolm Fraser . Usually the leader of the largest party in the lower house (legislature if unicameral). Formed by the largest party/coalition in the lower house (legislature if unicameral), and led by

21996-448: The time Butterfield wrote his Whig Interpretation , he may have been beating a dead horse: P. B. M. Blaas, in his 1978 book Continuity and Anachronism , argued that whig history itself had lost all vitality by 1914. Subsequent generations of academic historians have rejected Whig history because of its presentist and teleological assumption that history is driving toward some sort of goal. Butterfield's purpose with writing his 1931 book

22152-459: The union's charter, and nobody would be compelled by the charter to follow them. An example from the constitutional law of sovereign states would be a provincial parliament in a federal state trying to legislate in an area that the constitution allocates exclusively to the federal parliament, such as ratifying a treaty. Action that appears to be beyond power may be judicially reviewed and, if found to be beyond power, must cease. Legislation that

22308-426: The value of studying the history of educational reform, arguing that the great accomplishments of the past were cumulative and comprised the building blocks that “would raise us to a higher standing-point from which we may see much that will make the right road clearer to us”. Frederic William Maitland is "now universally recognised as the first practitioner of the modern discipline of history", using "medieval law as

22464-517: The wishes of the head of government. A president, monarch, or governor-general might possess clearly significant reserve powers . Examples of the use of such powers include the Australian constitutional crisis of 1975 and the Canadian King–Byng affair in 1926. The Lascelles Principles were an attempt to create a convention to cover similar situations, but have not been tested in practice. Because of differences in their written constitutions,

22620-631: The work on the Serbian Nomocanon in 1208 while he was at Mount Athos , using The Nomocanon in Fourteen Titles , Synopsis of Stefan the Efesian , Nomocanon of John Scholasticus , and Ecumenical Council documents, which he modified with the canonical commentaries of Aristinos and Joannes Zonaras , local church meetings, rules of the Holy Fathers , the law of Moses , the translation of Prohiron, and

22776-441: The world, with 146,385 words in its English-language version, while the Constitution of Monaco is the shortest written constitution with 3,814 words. The Constitution of San Marino might be the world's oldest active written constitution, since some of its core documents have been in operation since 1600, while the Constitution of the United States is the oldest active codified constitution. The historical life expectancy of

22932-461: Was a mixed system including monarchic, aristocratic, and democratic elements. He also distinguished between citizens, who had the right to participate in the state, and non-citizens and slaves, who did not. The Romans initially codified their constitution in 450 BC as the Twelve Tables . They operated under a series of laws that were added from time to time, but Roman law was not reorganized into

23088-455: Was a popular and celebrated historian of the whig school, his work did not feature in Butterfield's 1931 Whig Interpretation of History . According to Ernst Breisach, "his style captivated the public as did his good sense of the past and firm whiggish convictions". William Stubbs (1825–1901), the constitutional historian and influential teacher of a generation of historians, was the author of

23244-414: Was adopted by a number of countries which subsequently evolved or reformed their system of government departing from the original model. In some cases, certain aspects of the Westminster system were retained or codified in their constitutions. For instance South Africa and Botswana , unlike Commonwealth realms or parliamentary republics such as India, have a combined head of state and head of government but

23400-628: Was an organic, coherent, and systematic work of legislation encompassing the civil and penal law . The Gayanashagowa , the oral constitution of the Haudenosaunee nation also known as the Great Law of Peace, established a system of governance as far back as 1190 AD (though perhaps more recently at 1451) in which the Sachems , or tribal chiefs, of the Iroquois League's member nations made decisions on

23556-580: Was based on Roman - Byzantine law . The legal transplanting within articles 171 and 172 of Dušan's Code, which regulated juridical independence, is notable. They were taken from the Byzantine code Basilika (book VII, 1, 16–17). In 1222, Hungarian King Andrew II issued the Golden Bull of 1222 . Between 1220 and 1230, a Saxon administrator, Eike von Repgow , composed the Sachsenspiegel , which became

23712-562: Was extended and refined by the English barony when they forced King John to sign Magna Carta in 1215. The most important single article of Magna Carta, related to " habeas corpus ", provided that the king was not permitted to imprison, outlaw, exile or kill anyone at a whim – there must be due process of law first. This article, Article 39, of Magna Carta read: No free man shall be arrested, or imprisoned, or deprived of his property, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor shall we go against him or send against him, unless by

23868-456: Was held in a church choir . Traditionally, the opposition parties will sit in one row of seats, and the government party will sit in the other. In some countries, the mace will face the government’s side whilst lying on the table of the House. In most majority governments , the number of government-party MPs is so large that it must use the "opposition" seats as well. In the lower house at Westminster (the UK's House of Commons) there are lines on

24024-430: Was published in a series of volumes from 1848 to 1855. It proved an immediate success, replacing Hume's history and becoming the new orthodoxy. As if to introduce a linear progressive view of history, the first chapter of Macaulay's History of England proposes: The history of our country during the last hundred and sixty years is eminently the history of physical, of moral, and of intellectual improvement. While Macaulay

24180-404: Was to criticise oversimplified narratives (or "abridgements") which interpreted past events in terms of the present for the purposes of achieving "drama and apparent moral clarity". Butterfield especially noted: It is part and parcel of the whig interpretation of history that it studies the past with reference to the present. Butterfield argued that this approach to history compromised the work of

24336-649: Was used for those of England, beginning with the Code of Æthelberht of Kent (602). Around 893, Alfred the Great combined this and two other earlier Saxon codes, with various Mosaic and Christian precepts, to produce the Doom book code of laws for England. Japan 's Seventeen-article constitution written in 604, reportedly by Prince Shōtoku , is an early example of a constitution in Asian political history. Influenced by Buddhist teachings,

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