Constitution of the United Kingdom
The constitution of the United Kingdom is the system of rules that shapes the political governance of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The UK constitution is not contained in a single code, but principles have emerged over the centuries from statute, case law, political conventions and social consensus. In this sense, it can be said that the United Kingdom does not have a constitution or a basic law. In England in 1215, Magna Carta required the King to call "common counsel" or Parliament, hold courts in a fixed place, guarantee fair trials, guarantee free movement of people, free the church from the state, and enshrined the rights of "common" people to use the land. After the English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution 1688, Parliament won supremacy over the monarch, as well as the church and the courts, and the Bill of Rights 1689 recorded its fundamental unit of right in "Person" and that the "election of members of Parliament ought to be free". The Act of Union 1707 unified England, Wales and Scotland, while Ireland was joined in 1801, but the Republic of Ireland formally separated between 1916 and 1921. By the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928, almost every adult man and woman was finally entitled to vote for Parliament. The UK was a founding member of the International Labour Organization (ILO), the United Nations, the Commonwealth, the Council of Europe and the World Trade Organization (WTO). The principles of Parliamentary sovereignty, the rule of law, democracy, and internationalism guide the UK's modern political system to advance the social and economic development of its people.
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