ess of Britain as a country without a written constitution compares favourably to the US where the Bill of Rights states the right for American citizens to bear arms and no matter what modern events take place, for example the sniper shootings which occurred in Washington in 2002, the Supreme court cannot allow large scale gun control measures to take place due to it been against the word of a document which was written over two hundred years ago. This indicates that a fully codified written constitution would be unable to keep up with the times, ultimately rendering it obsolete.
             The fact that the US constitution is difficult to amend also gives rise to the question of the flexibility of constitutions. The crude definition of flexibility is that codified constitutions are inflexible and entrenched in a higher law and uncodified constitutions are flexible and adaptable. The US constitution has had twenty six amendments, ten of which were introduced in the first two years of its existence. However the rigidity this produces is misleading. Although codified documents change little on the surface their meanings are subject to constant revision and updating through the process of judicial interpretation.1 The adaptability of uncodified constitutions is not always beneficial. Within the British constitution some conventions have proved to be so adaptable that they can be reshaped to the convenience of the government of the day. However on the other hand other conventions are so deeply ingrained in political and popular culture that their modification or abandonment is unthinkable.
             The idea that the constitution of Britain is shaped by the government of the day gives rise to the most pressing debate used by those arguing in favour of a written constitution. Parliamentary sovereignty, defined as the absolute and unlimited authority of a parliament in its ability to make, amend or repeal any law it wishes,2 is highly praised by its supp...