Stephen Hockman QC considers the path to take in order to ease the UK’s constitutional tensions
In my last article, I pointed out some important tensions in our constitutional arrangements. In this, the third and final article in the series, I want to try to identify more broadly what those tensions are and how, if at all, they can be resolved.
Fundamental objectives
An analysis of our constitutional arrangements ought to begin with some propositions about their fundamental objectives. I suggest that the one purpose—perhaps the main purpose—of democratic government is to enable society as a whole to be organised in accordance with the will of the majority. At the same time, as we came to recognise above all in the second-half of the 20th century, the will of the majority cannot be allowed to reign unchecked. A system of government must contain very strong safeguards for individuals and groups of individuals within society, in other words minorities, whose views and behaviour do not coincide with those of the collective.
Parliamentary
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