Comparative constitutional law should be made a mandatory topic in law school. There is an almost automatic incomprehension of systems different from the one you grew up in. And usually in rather drastic terms. (Thread)
This goes every which way. A person from systems with strong judicial review and written constitution learning about UK constitutional conventions needs years to get over that shock. /2
Lawyers from the UK in return are used to one strict all powerful rule - sovereignty of parliament. The one rule to bind them all. Of course, different in other systems. Fights between state and federal courts? Checks and balances? You mean chaos! /3
The first time I heard about the magic formula (Swiss Constitutional law) I thought the person telling me was joking. /4
Now all of this would be amusing, if it would not come with strong - and usually wrong - judgments. Without knowledge of a variety of systems there‘s a rush to judgment: if you do THAT you can‘t be a democracy. /5
The problem is, of course, that this does not mean that you cannot make countries more or less democratic. That the risk of transforming a vibrant democracy into an autocratic system does not exist. But you need to be thorough, careful and precise. /6
Statements like:a country where you can be a minister but not an mp is not a democracy are weird in that context. The UK might now have a minister who is not an MP, but that alone hardly turns it into an autocratic system.
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