Unlike most countries, the UK does not have a ‘codified’, or ‘written’, constitution. But this does not mean that none of the UK’s constitution is written down. There are, for example, important pieces of legislation, such as the Human Rights Act 1998, that perform functions (such as setting out legally protected fundamental rights) that would often, in other countries, be performed by a codified constitution. If the UK were to adopt a written constitution, we would, subject to the terms of the constitution, look to the courts to provide legal enforcement of it. This might, for instance, mean that courts would be able to strike down Acts of Parliament that breached the constitution — something that courts cannot currently do.
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