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''Unwritten laws," such as conventions of the Constitution, have a strange way of generating a lot of writing. Those conventions rise to the surface in any minority government, and they have done so especially in the past 10 days of Canadian politics.
The fact that constitutional conventions — such as the rules and practices on who decides on dissolving Parliament, and when — are not formulated in one authoritative document is not a mere perversity, odd as it may seem to have rules that no court can enforce or even interpret.
They have their purposes. They are much like principles of international law: understandings and practices that nation-states usually accept, in the absence of a world government or international courts that can enforce their decisions. International law, for example, provides guidelines for a world in which war is entirely possible.
Civil war is entirely possible, too; national governments can become weak, and conflicts among classes, regions, ethnic groups, religions, parties and even branches of government can lead to anarchy and violence. Canada's constitutional conventions emerged from civil wars and revolutions, mostly in Britain, but also here, out of rebellions and the struggle for responsible government. They are attempts to express a consensus, in order to prevent disagreements from getting out of hand.
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The phrase "conventions of the Constitution" is a 19th-century formulation, but assertions and understandings about what is, or is not, constitutional go back much farther.
Three phases of English history left resonant precedents. The first was the conflict between the proverbially bad King John and the barons, leading to a settlement in Magna Carta in 1215, but continuing as a struggle between the next king and Parliament until 1265.
A second constitutionally disturbed era began after the Tudor monarchs, who knew how to manipulate and intimidate their Parliaments, were succeeded by the Stuarts. The parliamentary opposition to King James I became intense in the 1620s. To grossly simplify, Parliament's position was a renewed assertion of "no taxation without representation" — a principle already well on its way to being established in Magna Carta, though now mainly associated with the 18th-century English settlers on the North Atlantic seaboard who pursued this theme enthusiastically.
In 1628, James's son and successor, Charles I, lost patience and suddenly prorogued Parliament, saying, "I owe an account of my actions to none but God alone." Prorogation is a scheduling matter, though, in 1628 as in 2008, it meant playing for time. But it is not basic to the character of the regime, as dissolution is, which is why the principles about when to prorogue, and not to, are ill-developed.
Prorogation carries a strong echo this week, but the cases of Charles Stuart and Stephen Harper differ greatly (not only in that Charles, an outstanding collector, had far greater feeling for the arts). A year later, the King took a counter-revolutionary step, dissolved Parliament and did not summon another for 11 years, the longest gap ever, a time known as the "personal rule" of Charles I. In 1640, with Presbyterian Scotland in revolt, he could find no other way of raising new money than to convoke a new Parliament, which turned out to be the longest ever. Civil war broke out, and Parliament's victory soon morphed into the military dictatorship of Oliver Cromwell. After a show trial, Charles was beheaded. The "Long Parliament" did not quite peter out until 1660, a shadow of itself.
The conflict continued, however, through the reigns of Charles's two sons, the second of whom, James II, was deposed in the Revolution of 1688 (often called "glorious"), which declared the King to have constructively abdicated, in favour of his daughter Mary and son-in-law, William of Orange. This agitated period did not quite end until the second attempt to restore to the throne Charles' descendants failed in 1745.
The third, almost non-violent phase from which our current conventions of the Constitution evolved began when King George III (reigning from 1760 to 1820) tried to reassert royal power, with mixed success, in times that were shaken by the American and the French Revolutions.
In 1783, George made the second-last monarch-initiated dissolution. He had dismissed one cabinet and called upon William Pitt the Younger to be prime minister, who lacked, or soon lost, majority support in the Commons. The King was not a democrat, but he resorted to the people, and Pitt won the election of 1784. In the end, this royal victory amounted to an important democratic precedent.
