Where is the unwritten constitution in force?

Asked 26-Nov-2021
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Countries having an Uncodified/Unwritten Constitution
Before we go looking into the countries, having the Uncodified or Unwritten constitution, I would like to elaborate on the term “Uncodified”. Because we all know the meaning of the constitution and its applicability in any Democratic country.

Uncodified  constitution

This is a Constitution where thefundamental Laws and rules are taken out through many Customs, Usages, Precedent, legal statutes, and a number of legal instruments. Generally in all the Democratic countries, we can see they have their own Constitution in a written and codified in an official manner. We can also say that here the codified means the compiling of the Laws or rules, under which the people of that country are governed. Sometimes these rules depend on the circumstances and situation of the cases. We can often observe that different judge on the same matter passes different judgment. It means that there is “not any written Provision codified in any official document” called Codified Constitution. Also, this form of constitution is considered to be the most flexible form in all.

Uncodified Constitution countries

1- United Kingdome- in the UK, there is no such codified defining document called “Constitution”. This is because that there has never been any revolution to change the system. It is continuously being defined as the term “Acts of Parliament” and the Law Courts. During some of the time, it could turn to be constitution like in Treaty of Union 1707. In fact, not having a codified constitution, he added several acts in constitutional statutes e.g. Freedom of information act 2000, Human Rights act 1997, and fixed-term Parliament Act 2011. It means that the UK has written statutes but it hasn’t codified them.

2- Canada – Similar to the UK, Canada doesn’t have a codified constitution. In place of that, it has the constitutional acts. And each province of Canada has its own ruling and statutes according to its jurisdiction. One of them has codified his constitution his name is British Colombia and the Roles and Powers are codified in section 93 of the constitution act 1867. And later on, it amended the act according to the other provinces like Manitoba act and new Found land Act,

3- Israel – in the early period the “Declaration of independence” promised a Constitution by 2 October 1948, but due to some opposition parties it could not fulfill its promise till yet.

4- New Zealand – New Zealand constitution is totally uncodified and we can say that it has a mixture of written and unwritten constitutions. The Law system of this country is being operated by the constitution act 1986.

Similar to the above countries many other countries have an unwritten form of constitution and the justice system of such countries is going through the customs and the practices of their society. The name of such other countries is as follows- San Marino, Saudi Arabia, and China.