Emancipation
England, Northern Ireland, Scotland & Wales
Some constitutional implications of a lecture by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury
In the lecture delivered on 7th February, 2008 by Rowan Williams many aspects of the weakness of our constitution were touched upon. The lecture focused upon the specific issues facing adherents to different religions and using Islam an example. But the same logic applied by Rowan Williams applies to everyone in the country. The implications of the lecture go far further than consideration of the problems faced by adherents of institutional religions.
Whether by design or or not, Rowan Williams exposed the fundamental constraints imposed upon individual freedom by our modern system of governance. Indeed, without reference to the specific interests of religious groups but referring to the general state of affairs in the United Kingdom of a failure of the legislative to take into account the preferences of most people, the work "The Briton's Quest for Freedom"1 shows that this is the general state of affairs facing all people in Britain. This book explains that the failures highlighted by Rowan Williams are only a reduced set of concerns reflecting a failure of our constitutional system based upon the majority principle. British legislation is imposed by a political party in government with no more that 19% of electorate support and ignores the preferences of the remaining 81% of the electorate. This inversion of power is made possible by our electoral system which provides a political party with a minority of electorate support with an over-whelming majority of votes in Parliament. The cloud hanging over all legislation is therefore its legitimacy in that it is not supported by anything approaching a majority.
Accordingly Rowan Williams lecture, in pointing out problems which religious minorites face helps draw attention to a more general problem facing the British electorate as a whole.
Whereas Rowan Williams raised the question of accommodation he also identified the problem of codified law such as that generated in the European Union and entering our statutes with almost no discussion or analysis and largely our of sight of the electorate. The book "The Briton's Quest for Freedom"1 provides a detailed analysis of how British political parties have manipulated the majority system so as to end up with the current unsatisfactory state of affairs. It also provides some useful solutions. One is the emphasis of the need to shift the concept of voter preference from that of a choice between fait accomplis manifestos presented by political parties to a process where community representatives (MPs) carry to Parliament constituency views and a direct participation in policy formulation free from the party whip system. Such a system of legislative initiation would be more likely to be concerned with issues of direct interest of the population rather than priorities established by British political parties whose total membership constitutes less than 1% of the British electorate. At least this proposal for legislation would help shift the range of concerns and options from the grip of partisan discussions dominated by political party dogma. Although aiming at unanimity in legislative decisions a more flexible system of revenue capture by local communities enables Parliamentary decisions to gravitate towards a multi-configurable legislation within which local communities can raise revenue and provide public services in different ways according to individual preference. As a result a policy is no longer one size fits all but rather an adaptable system which serves to attract the support of the majority.
Paradoxically the approach which is likely to secure the support of a larger proportion of the electorate, and even a majority, is based upon a principle developed in the book and referred to as the minority principle. The minority principle, as opposed to the majority principle, is a constitutional principle whereby decisions are required to reflect the preferences of all individuals. This counter-intuitive principle, as explained in the book, achieves a majority support and a more successful form of majority participation than the majority principle.
One of the underlying requirements is a use of high quality and independently prepared information for identifying policy options and take decisions. By distancing such policy reviews from partisan positions it is more easy for people to recognise where feasible options lie and, indeed, to distinguish more clearly between options. Such a process is not marked by contention but rather accommodation where each, under the law, can achieve their objectives.
1 Chapter 23, The Minority Principle, pp. 247-264, "The Briton's Quest for Freedom - Our unfinished journey", McNeill, H.W., Hambrook Publishing Company, 2007, ISBN: 9780907833017 |
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