Not having a judicial body that is fully independent of the legislative branch (parliament) and not being able to strike down laws is interesting/surprising to me shrug. I've always liked the idea of strong judicial oversight. But I guess without a strong constitution, where parliaments laws can't be ruled unconstitutional, it doesn't matter much... the public will be fully at the whims of parliament.
UK judicial oversight is actually pretty good. The government at the time lost numerous important cases when trying to implement Brexit. While Parliament can create legislation to overrule the courts decisions it's not typical and in the case of EU legislation they were stuck because they couldn't easily change that. The UK does have a strong constitution despite the fact it's not codified. In my opinion the US Supreme Court is farcical compared with the UK one. The fact it has lifetime appointments and is accepted as politically biased astounds me. NB: I know you didn't mention the US but it's my only point of comparison.
> The government at the time lost numerous important cases when trying to implement Brexit.
Yup, in the two cases that come to mind, the Supreme Court kicked the issue back to Parliament: Miller I[1] said that, given the extreme constitutional consequences of no deal, the Government couldn't unilaterally trigger Article 50, such a decision could only come from Parliament. This was more just a procedural issue. An Act[2] was passed a couple months after the judgment, and Article 50 was triggered a couple days later. Whereas, Miller II[3] was about the Government proroguing Parliament in order to silence it. The Supreme Court was having none of that, so it annulled the prorogation. In both cases, the Supreme Court was protecting Parliament.
The UK doesn't have a written constitution. This is rare amongst highly developed democracies. Also, to my knowledge, most parliamentary systems don't have a final court that can overturn laws passed by the parliament.
Aren't US SC judges picked by the president? Can't he override everything with pardons and executive orders anyway? Can't the US constitution be, uh, amended?
They're nominated by the president, but approved by the Senate. There have been cases throughout history where a nominated judge doesn't get through the approval process. Of course when the president and the Senate are aligned and in agreement this approval process is largely a rubber stamp.
Can't he override everything with pardons and executive orders anyway?
Not at all. Despite what it sometimes looks like, the president's executive order powers are quite limited. But again, if congress isn't willing to challenge the order and the Supreme Court isn't willing to rule on it, these limits are more theoretical.
Can't the US constitution be, uh, amended?
It can, but it is a slow and difficult process, requiring 2/3 support of both the house and the senate, plus support from 3/4 of the States. There have apparently been over 10000 attempts to amend the constitution since the founding, of which 27 have passed. Furthermore the president has no power to suggest or approve constitutional amendments.
Basically a president that doesn't have the support of Congress and the Supreme Court has surprisingly little power.
Technically it just requires 3/4 of the state legislatures (first 2/3 of them to trigger a constitutional convention, and then 3/4 to ratify its results).
Which - fun fact - is possible to do with states that together amount to less than 25% of the overall country population. In fact, given that it's really the legislature that needs to vote for ratification, and given FPTP being typical on state level as well + the usual gerrymandering etc that this enables, it's actually possible to amend the US Constitution arbitrarily with something like 10% of the voters (acting in concert to vote in the state legislatures that would then do the amending), if they have just the right geographic distribution.
Yup, which is why movements like https://conventionofstates.com/ can be quite frightening. As while it may seem reasonable at first glance, you needn't look very hard to find the sinister intent. Surely by now there has to be a name for the concept, similar to Godwin's Law, of right-wing movements bringing up George Soros. In addition, it mentions gay marriage, abortion, and the Affordable Care Act as examples of why a Convention of States is necessary. How lovely =/
