What did the Bill of Rights 1689 establish?

The Bill of Rights 1689 is an Act of the English Parliament that established the constitutional supremacy of Parliament over the Crown, confirmed a series of civil liberties, and set out the terms under which the throne could be held.

It was passed in the wake of the Glorious Revolution of 1688, in which James II was deposed and the crown was offered jointly to his daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange. Parliament first presented them with a Declaration of Right setting out the conditions of their rule. That declaration was subsequently passed as a statute in December 1689 and has remained in force ever since.

The Act's provisions fall into two broad groups. First, it placed specific restrictions on royal power. The monarch could not suspend or dispense with laws passed by Parliament, could not raise taxes without parliamentary consent, and could not maintain a standing army in peacetime without Parliament's authority. Second, it confirmed a set of rights for Parliament and subjects. Elections to Parliament had to be free, proceedings in Parliament could not be impeached or questioned in any court (the origin of modern parliamentary privilege), Parliaments had to be held "frequently", subjects had the right to petition the king, there was to be no cruel or unusual punishment, and excessive bail and fines were prohibited. The Act also set out the Protestant succession, barring Catholics and anyone who married a Catholic from the throne, a provision modified but not abolished by the Succession to the Crown Act 2013.

The Bill of Rights 1689 is one of the foundational documents of the modern British constitution. Its guarantee of freedom of speech in Parliament, found in Article 9, is still litigated today and has been cited by the Supreme Court in cases on parliamentary privilege. Its restriction on cruel and unusual punishment was copied word-for-word into the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Its requirement that elections be free underpins the modern law of parliamentary elections.

A companion Scottish statute, the Claim of Right 1689, imposed similar restrictions on the Crown in Scotland and was passed by the Scottish Parliament of the time. The two documents together settled the constitutional terms on which the joint monarchy of William and Mary was accepted across Great Britain.

Together with Magna Carta 1215 and the Act of Settlement 1701, the Bill of Rights forms the core of the historic statute law of the British constitution.