Budget Amount *help |
¥1,000,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,000,000)
Fiscal Year 1991: ¥500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000)
Fiscal Year 1990: ¥500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000)
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Research Abstract |
The aim of this research is to make clear both the charactaristics and the problematics of the modern British Constitution. In order to do it, this researcher examined the main constitutional reform proposals advocated during the Thatcher governments. Mrs. Thatcher's governments have caused extraordinary strong criticism of the breach of the traditional liberal constitutional norms or the constitutional consensus by her political performances. Through examining those reform proposals advanced against her rule midst the severe political antagonism, we can grasp the truth of the problems best. Among the materials examined are included "THE Citizen's Charter" by John Major, Prime Minister, "Looking to the Future" by the Labor, "We, the People --Towards A Written Constitution" by the Liberal Democrats, "The Constitution of the United Kingdom" by the Institute of Public Policy Research, "The Commonwealth of Britain Bill" by Tony Benn, and others. The followings have been made cleared by exami
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ning those materials and many academic works. (1) The separation of power and the human rights are the two pillars of the modern western constitutionalsm. In the British Constitution those have been guaranteed mainly by the political process, not by the judicial process. (2) The democratic nature of the political process has been guaranteed by the regulation of the state organ through the control by the strong civil society. (3) Many constitutional proposals today except Benn's Bill prefer the judicial process to the political one to safeguard the liberties and the democratic working of the government system. The reason why they abandened the traditional political process seems to be at bottom that the civil society has begun to lose her strength to sustain the upper political structures. (4) Mrs. Thatcher's political ambition was fundamentaly to rearrange the state or government - the society relations. She used the traditional constitution in order to do it. It was like a kind of a coup d'etat. The reform advocates are different. They are willing to do the same rearrangement by the legitimate way of the enactment of the written constitution. But both Mrs. Thatcher and the advocate of the "judicial" constitution have the same standpoint in that they want the rearrangement of Britain. So long as it is true, this tide is a part of the great change in the contemporary world, too. Less
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