Discuss the Role and importance of conventions of Constitution in England?

The ‘unwritten’ nature of the UK constitution, where there is no higher law as such inevitably makes conventions of paramount authority in terms of determining the legality of parliament’s and the executive’s actions. In British politics it is such conventions that demonstrate the true distribution of power. The clearest example is the role of the sovereign who, on paper, appears to wield as much power as an absolute monarch. Through the exercise of the royal prerogative, the sovereign can dissolve Parliament, appoint or dismiss governments, ministers and prime ministers, and refuse her assent to bills passed by Parliament. In truth the sovereign yields no such power, at least not personally, except in the most exceptional circumstances. The practical operation of the government of the United Kingdom rests in the hands of elected ministers and officials, acting under a mixture of law and residue of the royal prerogative. This has become established convention. Conventions are therefore informal, but by no means ‘weak’, rules and practices which relate the formal theory of the constitution to practical realities of the day, perhaps by modifying the strict law, or by expanding it. They ‘provide the flesh which clothes the dry bones of law’, as one writer put it. There is no accepted definition of the term ‘constitutional convention’, and some authorities do not like the term being used, preferring alternatives such as ‘non-legal constitutional rules’. Laid out in bare language, constitutional conventions are binding but non-legal rules. Non-legal here means that such rules are not part of law, and although political pressure would make it unthinkable, those who are bound by such conventions would not actually be breaking the law by not adhering to them. Below are some of the key conventions in the British system Parliament - The Speaker in Parliament must be - Only the Law Lords, not ordinary peers, can hear House of Lords appeals - Majorities should not use their power to sideline minorities - The House of Lords does not oppose legislation from a government’s election manifesto The Executive - Governing ministers are accountable to parliament for their policies and actions. This is the convention known as ministerial responsibility, and it requires ministers to take responsibility for the actions of civil servants working under them, as well as the departments they head. They are in this way, ultimately accountable to the public, through parliament. - The centrality of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet in the political system - The Prime Minister must be drawn from the House of Commons The Monarch - The Queen never refuses to give Royal Assent to bills that are properly passed by Parliament - The Queen invites the leader of the majority party to form a government after a general election - The Monarch does not voice her political opinions By not being law in the strictest sense, conventions can be ‘breached’ pr ignored by those affected by them. This may be regarded in some circumstances as valuable flexibility, but in others as arbitrary and capricious. The effect of breach of a convention may involve political consequences for an individual or long term consequences where the efficacy of a convention is undermined by successive disregard for it (the convention of Prime Ministerial government – that is, government by cabinet consensus – is one that has been if not eroded, than at least greatly transformed in recent years for example).