The Research On Constitutional Convention

In October 2011,the British government issued the Cabinet Manual.This is a guide to the laws,conventions and rules on the operation of government.Meanwhile,it represents a background of a written constitution of British.Convention constitutes an important part of the document.The current normative analysis of convention is not fully understood due to the ambiguity of convention.Therefore,this article takes Cabinet Manual as a concrete object,attempting to deepen the understanding of British constitutional convention through systematic analysis of the Cabinet Convention by means of normative analysis.In addition to the introduction,this article consists of four parts.The structure is as follows:The first part is about the formulation of the Cabinet Manual.Cabinet Manual is a means for British government as a guide for the internal operation of government.On the one hand,the production of Cabinet Manual is in response to the "hung parliament" in 2010,on the other hand,it is rooted in the government‘s demands to the transparency and accountability.In view of this,the British government formulated the draft Cabinet Manual in 2010.And after a three-month public supervision and feedback,British government issued the final version of the Cabinet Manual in October 2011.The Cabinet Manual is not the first attempt by the British government to codify convention.However,it is the first time for British government to regulate a document about the laws,conventions and rules on the operation of government.Its value lies in wide-ranging of the scope and the comprehensiveness of the content.The second part is about content of the Cabinet Manual.There is about eleven chapters,which mainly involve three aspects.The first is internal rules of British government.The second is the relationship between the executive and the legislature or the executive and the judiciary.The third is the relationship among UK government ?the devolved government and internal institutions.Cabinet Manual is a guide to the laws,conventions and rules on the operation of government,and conventions play an important role in this document.In fact,the manual is the latest instalment in a non-statutory process whereby arrangements that could be regarded as constitutional conventions have come increasingly in recent decades to be defined in public,official documents.A number of these texts are referred to in the Cabinet Manualitself,alongside other accounts of conventions,other rules and laws.The third part is about the normative analysis of individual convention.Conventions constitute the most important source of the Cabinet Manual,however,the ambiguity of convention leads to the uncertainty of content.The determination of convention depends on politics.The collective responsibility is the core of the government and the caretaker convention is also important.Taking the two individual conventions as object can help us find out the considerations British government would have to determine the course of the conventions.Conclusion,the role of constitutional convention in a country that does not appeal to a written constitutional law may be more important than other countries with a written constitution.Under the background of British constitutional reform,the ambiguity of convention could lead to a political crisis.Codification is an important prerequisite for usage.The Cabinet Manual is an important attempt to codify the conventions,and it is also a strong validation of the normative of conventions.