Law and Practice

The Cabinet is the core of the British constitutional system. It is the supreme directing authority. It integrates what would otherwise be a heterogeneous collection of authorities exercising a vast variety of functions. It provides unity to the British system of government. If, therefore, a constituent assembly were to set out in a written document the present British Constitution, as it is actually operated, the Cabinet would be provided for in a prominent place. In the Cabinet and, still more, out of it, the most important person is the Prime Minister. It is he who is primarily concerned with the formation of a Cabinet, with the subjects which the Cabinet discusses, with the relations between the Queen and the Cabinet and between the Cabinet and Parliament, and with the co-ordination of the machinery of government subject to the control of the Cabinet. He, too, would be given a prominent place in a written constitution.

It is a trite observation that there is no such constitution. With us, ‘the law’ is not an emanation from authorities set up or provided for by a written and formal document. It consists of the legislation of Parliament and the rules extracted from the decisions of judicial authorities. The powers of these bodies and the relations between them are the product of history. The constitutional authorities have claimed and have exercised law-making functions and the people has acquiesced in their exercise.