Introduction to the Constitution
Wing Commander Leonard Young, R.A.F. (Retd)
"According to Lord Chief Justice Coke (1552-1634) the laws which used to protect the British liberties stem from approximately 1100 BC when King Brutus selected them from the ancient Greek and Trojan institutions. They were re-codified by King Molmutius about 450 BC and were known as the Common rights or later as the Common Law.
Under them every subject was as free as the King and they could not be altered by any act of the Crown or National Convention. They were the inalienable rights to which every Briton was born and of which no legislation could deprive him.
Later the laws were re-codified by King Alfred, who quoted extensively from Moses, and in due course they were incorporated as a legal force into Magna Charta (1215), re-confirmed in the Revolution of 1399 when Richard ll was deposed; reaffirmed in 1660 at the Restoration of Charles ll and again in the Revolutionary Settlement after the abdication of James ll in 1688. In 1784 they were once again confirmed after George lll admitted defeat.
They conferred LEGAL DEMOCRACY upon our own people, thereby ensuring that they were ruled with their own consent and enjoyed the right to trial by jury and to liberty, property and vocation. These same laws led to the evolution of our Common Law Constitution, which was based upon certain essential requirements, including:
1) Separation of LEGISLATIVE and EXECUTIVE functions as explained by Blackstone (1723-1780) in his "Commentaries on the Laws of England".
This meant that if a member of the House of Commons was appointed to the government he had to resign his seat in the House in order to maintain the purity of the PREPRESENTATIVE principle. The LEGISLATURE consisted of the King, Lords and Commons and the EXECUTIVE of the King alone.
2) FREEDOM OF ELECTION, which required freedom of nomination in the constituency and freedom of the ELECTED representative from all influences of " fear, favour, punishment or patronage". (Today we see all too clearly how that freedom of election has vanished!) * * * *
NO ARBITRARY POWER HERE
Under our Common Law Constitution the kings were sovereign under God and the Law, which they were sworn to administer but powerless to change. They ruled with the advice and consent of the Ministers which THEY appointed (sic) for their skill and capacity. These Ministers, in carrying out their duties of State, needed to command the confidence of the freely elected and independent House of Commons, to which they were responsible.
To maintain and enforce the people's Rule of Law against rulers and subjects alike, the High Court of Parliament was so constituted that Parliament itself could not establish supremacy over all law, by virtue of the fundamental condition that the overall supremacy of Parliament only became an active force upon the Common Written Agreement of the three independent co-ordinate institutions, each subject to the law of the land.
Firstly, there was the supreme Executive authority of the nation vested in the King, acting as described above.
Secondly, there was the House of Lords as the Supreme Court of English Law acting with the advice of the English Bench of Judges.
Thirdly, the supreme law enforcement authority of the nation, vested in the freely elected House of Commons, being the Grand Inquest of the Nation, to which all authority, Executive, Administrative and judicial was finally responsible.
Thus constituted Parliament could not exercise despotic power, because the common agreement of the three independent institutions could only be obtained by reason and consent.
THREAT TO THE CONSTITUTION
This free legal democracy began to be challenged during the 18th Century by the modern doctrine of Parliamentary Sovereignty, first mooted by Lord Mansfield a Scottish Jacobite, who became
Lord Chief Justice of England. He did not appreciate the value of the English Common Law system, preferring the autocratic CIVIL LAW systems of Europe.
THE MISCHIEF OF "CONVENTIONS"
In order to explain away the destruction of our legal constitution, the (political) parties say that we have an unwritten one, consisting of the "conventions" which they themselves have devised to regulate and give an appearance of leglality to their unconstitutional and hence (according to Walter Paley's book "Political and Moral Philosophy"), illegal operations.
GOVERNMENT INSIDE THE HOUSE OF COMMONS:
Now, during the same period (Lord Mansfield) the House of Commons completely destroyed the ancient and inalienable right of the British people to freedom of election (as defined above), by COMBINING its legislative functions with the secret and unconstitutional PARTY CABINET arrangement inside the Commons. By adopting the principle of "collective responsibility" in the Cabinet the Ministers sought to avoid the risk of being impeached by the Commons for their appalling misgovernment!!! Further, by means of the highly organised and disciplined Party and Whip systems the elected Members of the House changed from being free members acting in accordance with their consciences in safeguarding the liberty of their constituents into being the obedient "lobby fodder" of the professional party politicians who obtained control over the Party Machines.
Sir Ivor Jennings in his "Law and the Constitution" stated that these conventions have never been formally recognised by Parliament or the Courts, which DO recognise the constitution of the Revolution Settlement, and that the institutions and practices which have grown up are not in legislation nor in Common Law nor in the law and custom of Parliament.
The above situation has resulted in the entirely LAWLESS, despotic and unstable PARTY government under which we suffer today and which has been the means of destroying (from within) the greatest Empire in history and reducing the British people to a state of frustrated impotence. The resultant disgust and distrust in which Parliament is held today by the indigenous Britons is inevitable. This gives rise to the popular perception "they're only in it for themselves" which is reinforced publicly on our TV screens by a jeering and impotent Opposition (impatiently waiting for the system to give it its turn at the reins of power and behave identically! Ed.) faced with a large government majority.
The House of Commons is, therefore, responsible for robbing us of our legal democracy under our legal constitution. The Parties tell us we have political democracy but it needs no genius to point out that such democracy is only possible in small, simple organisations...in which members are ALL knowledgeable. Today, the last thing our present rulers are concerned about are the true interests and freedoms of natural Britons.
This false idea of political democracy combined with the doctrine of Parliamentary sovereignty (of the Commons alone) based on PARTY GOVERNMENT has resulted not only in the virtual disfranchisement of the indigenous British people, but it has placed Parliament under powerful hidden influences and pressures ... which have nothing whatever to do with benefitting society as a whole!!
End of this part of the text by L. Young (reproduced by permission of the author).
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