Critically examine the strengths and weaknesses of the UK's uncodified constitition - Essay Example

However, none of the constitutions in the world countries is known to have perfectly performed its mandate and achieved perfection in its use. Different constitutions in various countries have their own flaws, which limit their effectiveness in those countries. Therefore, although constitutions give direction in governance and highly influence many spheres in a country, they all have their own disadvantages. This is also the case with the constitution of the United Kingdom, which has advantages and disadvantages in the country, due to various reasons, as will be discussed.

The constitution of the UK is quite different from those of most countries. While most countries in the world use written constitutions in their governance, the UK continues to make use of the uncodified constitution. By uncodified, it does not mean that none of the elements constituting the constitution is written down. However, in this constitution, one or more elements constituting the constitution might be written down, but there is no one single or whole document, having all the elements of the constitution written in it.

Most countries however, as noted, use the written or codified constitution; this includes even the United States of America. Therefore, being among the few countries that do not use a written constitution, considerable attention has been drawn to the significance of the constitution of the UK (Pilkington 1999). The unwritten constitution of the United Kingdom is also referred to as an uncodified constitution. This is a more appropriate term to refer to the UK constitution. Pilkington (1999) emphasizes that, the United Kingdom has different parts of its constitution written down, but what it only lacks is a one document, compiling all those elements of the constitution.

Therefore, this means that the United Kingdom uses convention and common