The Declaration of Rights was presented to William and Mary on 13 February 1688 and was agreed by them after they had jointly accepted the crown of Great Britain. The Bill of Rights was passed by Parliament in December 1689. As well as cataloguing the abuses of James II, it enshrined the ancient rights of the British people. Unlike most modern democracies that have written constitutions and bills of rights, Britain has never written down a set of rules that governs its democracy. Instead, the British constitution was settled in 1688 through a division of power between Parliament and the King, embodied in the English Bill of Rights. At the core of this arrangement is the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty, established by the 1688 settlement. This itself was the product of decades of struggle between Parliament and monarchs.
According to this doctrine, Parliament is the only source of political authority; it is sovereign and can make and unmake laws at will. Unlike countries with a written constitution, there are no fundamental laws that can bind Parliament. Although certain practices, such as universal suffrage, are deeply ingrained in British culture, there is nothing to stop Parliament - perfectly lawfully - abolishing voting and extending its own life indefinitely. Nor does our society possess fundamental rights. Instead, broadly speaking, British laws tell the people what they cannot do and their freedom exists, to use Thomas Hobbes' phrase, 'in the silence of the law'. (Hoffman, Ronald and Albert 400)
In practice, this doctrine often ends up being the sovereignty of government - the will of the largest political party - rather than Parliament. Away from Westminster, as we live in unitary state (as opposed to a federal state), all other tiers of government - local government, development boards, health authorities, regional assemblies -........
