Can the Constitution of a Fruit Fly Be Written?

Abstract This chapter is in conversation with John Gardner’s essay ‘Can There Be a Written Constitution?’ It explores Gardner’s strategy of answering his title question by reference to HLA Hart’s secondary rules and suggests that, by doing so, his title question may best be reformulated as ‘Can the constitution of a legal system be written?’. If one instead seeks to inquire into the constitution of a state or government, Hart’s secondary rules may supply only a part of one’s materials for study. The chapter aims to highlight how Gardner makes an all-important contribution to the debate whether there is a case for the UK to move towards a written constitution. He helps us see how that very idea presupposes that there is something that can be written. To assume that everything about the UK constitution can be written is akin to thinking that the constitution of a fruit fly can be written simply because it is a constitution.