Do I need to revise those lecture points about “fusion of powers” and “ceremonial head of state”?
Papers prepared by the Cabinet Office and recently made public shed light on the UK monarch’s employment of the veto (Guardian, 14 Jan.).
Most of the cases cited involve bills that directly affect crown interests, although one bill vetoed in 1999 was a private member’s bill concerning military actions against Iraq, and others have been on agricultural and housing bills.
The withholding of consent is on “advice” of ministers, so it would be misleading to see this as a runaway unaccountable monarchy blocking the normal functioning of parliamentary government. On the other hand, it seems a significant curtailment of “parliamentary sovereignty” if executive ministers can “advise” the monarch to veto bills duly passed by parliament.
Moreover, it seems that the veto can be to individual provisions of a bill. If so, then maybe I need to add UK to cases of not just veto, but also item veto!
The Crown also has a pre-emtpive veto on bills with respect to the royal prerogative, although not in the Commonwealth realms. The prerogative is the default set of total powers and functions that have not been vested int he parliament or the courts. So in the Uk you cannot even introduce a bill without first getting royal consent on some legislation.
The dirty secret of the Westminster system is that the royal prerogative now belongs to prime ministers whoa re quote eager to defend this medieval relic. John Howard actually declared war on al-Qa’ida on 12 September 2001 in Washington without consulting the cabinet.
Seed planted by Alan — 16 January 2013 @ 18:24
ahem ‘royal powers and fucntions’
Seed planted by Alan — 16 January 2013 @ 18:25
Yes, I missed that initially: most of these cases involve refusal of assent for introduction of a bill. And the government clearly controls the agenda in the UK system, whether on its own or via advising the monarch.
(Thanks to Alan Renwick for pointing this out in another forum.)
Seed planted by MSS — 17 January 2013 @ 14:40
There is actually quite a close fit between the prerogative and the ‘inherent powers’ that were so beloved of the Bush administration. Amazingly enough the word has now become a fave with the Labor Right in Australia.
Julia Gillard had a brief period of about 60 seconds or less when she believed she could override the opposition to her planned UN vote by invoking what she called the ‘leader’s prerogative’. She then had a rather unpleasant epiphany.
Seed planted by Alan — 17 January 2013 @ 16:33
Part of the stroy is Prince Charles’ letter-writing habits-bring attention of ministers to his hobby horses and worthy causes. Has there ever been a study if this kind of informal pressure, or at least nose-poking, has had any actual political impact-can the sovereign, because of the sovereigns prestige, get his way, at least at the margins?
Seed planted by DC — 18 January 2013 @ 13:50
There also the delicate question of pre-advice advice. The most famous is probably when the Australian government announced that they would be advising George V to appoint an Australian as governor-general. The British government (then the transmission channel between Commonwealth realms and the palace) intimated to the Australian government that their advice would be unwelcome to the king, should not be tendered, and would not be transmitted by the British secretary of state for the colonies. Scullin, the prime minister of Australia, handed the written advice to George on a palace reception line.
This was universally agreed by the British establishment, court, government and press to be frightfully bad form, although a subsequent Imperial Conference (meeting of British and dominion prime ministers) endorsed Australia’s position.
Seed planted by Alan — 18 January 2013 @ 16:30
My understanding is that the way constitutional monarchy is supposed to work is that the monarch always acts according to the advice of his/ her ministers on policy questions. The ministers in turn are responsible to the legislature, hence democratic control of the government to the extent the legislature is democratically elected.
As was debated in an earlier thread, while the ministry requires the confidence of the legislature to continue, defeats on individual bills in themselves are not indicative of a lack of confidence. The legislature can pass a private member’s bill that the ministers oppose. The ministers need not resign and can advise the monarch to veto the bill. At this point the monarch is constitutionally entitled and in fact probably required to exercise the veto.
Of the bills the Guardian listed, one seems to have fit that category, and the others seemed to impinge on how the Queen managed her household. One of the unique features of the British monarchy is the extent to which the monarch retained control of the royal household (in contrast for example to Japan). This arose from an early nineteenth century deal that was important in the development of the constitutional monarchy in the first place.
Buckingham Palace has gone to great lengths to obscure the Queen’s continuing political role, but I think the only surprise in the article is how active she has been.
Incidentally, someone should do a comparison of the political powers of the contemporaries Wilhelm II of Germany and George V (or Edward VII) of England. The German monarch was much more of a figurehead, and the British one much less of one, than is commonly believed.
Seed planted by Ed — 19 January 2013 @ 20:11
In Australia there are 2 kinds of veto. A bill can be vetoed by the governor-general. A bill can also be disallowed by the Queen within in one year, even thought it has received royal assent from the governor-general.
No bill has ever been vetoed in Australia, although a couple were reserved for the Queen’s pleasure, rather than receiving assent from the governor-general. No bill has ever been disallowed by the Queen after receiving assent from the governor-general. The same is true for New Zealand and the Australian states. I’d be surprised it it is not also true for Canada.
There is just no practice of the governor-general vetoing a bill that has passed the parliament. In the UK there has been no refusal of assent since the reign of Anne, 1702-1714. There is some fun history from the Colony of Victoria in the 1850s.
I agree that the ministry does not have to resign on a particular defeat. The exceptions are where the ministry declare a particular bill (or indeed a procedural motion) a matter of confidence or where the House itself explicitly declares that confidence is withdrawn.
If either happened the governor-general would have serious conversations with a prime minister who wanted to carry on without seeking a new vote of confidence or advising an election.
In 1987 the then premier of Queensland tendered such advice to the governor, who rejected it. Ultimately the premier resigned.
The Guardian cases are peculiar to Britain where a bill touching the royal prerogative cannot even be introduced without royal consent.
Seed planted by Alan — 19 January 2013 @ 21:11
On second look, there may be not much at all to this story.
It appears that some bills are not even being introduced in the House of Commons out of deference to objections from Buckingham Palace.
However, most bills introduced in the House of Commons are government bills. Probably during the normal course of business, civil servants would check to see if some piece of government-introduced legislation adversely affected the monarchy before their minister introduces the bill (both the civil servant and the minister technically work for the Queen!).
This is really only an issue with private members bills and motions made by the Opposition. Again, most modern day Leaders of the Opposition would be sensitive about impinging on the royal household. Its rare for a private members bill to get anywhere, or even debated, unless the government favors it.
So the article might be describing a routine practice of civil servants in the appropriate government ministry checking with the civil servants attached to the Court to see if some mooted piece of legislation affects the royal household.
Matters are no doubt different in Australian and Canada where Queen owns little in the way of property, either by virtue of her position or personally.
Seed planted by Ed — 20 January 2013 @ 16:32
As with prorogation there is a really good case for abolishing the ‘prerogative veto’. The Commonwealth realms regularly legislate on the royal prerogative without prior royal or viceregal consent and the world has not fallen down. I can see there is a case for insulating the private interests of the royal household from some legislation. Many constitutions insulate the head of state from salary decreases and so forth.
The prerogative veto is exercised on advice anyway, so it is hard to see how its continuance serves any purpose.
Seed planted by Alan — 20 January 2013 @ 20:18
Compare and contrast:
1. In the USA, UK, and Australia (inter alia), finance bills can only begin in the Lower House, not the Upper. This applies regardless of whether the Upper House is easily overridden (UK), dissoluble (Australia), or neither overridable nor dissoluble (USA).
2. However, in the UK and Australia, finance bills cannot even be considered by the Lower House unless they have been recommended by message from the Crown.
3. Whereas in the USA, the President has no greater veto power over budget measures than over ordinary legislation.
Seed planted by Tom Round — 01 February 2013 @ 04:18
#3 has, at times been particularly contentious. The Line-Item Veto law was intended to allow the President greater authority over the budgetary process (by allowing him to veto pork-barrel projects without killing an entire bill), but the Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional, and that the only constitutionally acceptable way to veto was to veto an entire bill.
Seed planted by Chris — 01 February 2013 @ 07:10
@12
And yet weirdly both the line-item veto is quite common in state constitutions. I really need to read Sandy Levinson’s book, Framed. And reforming political scientists need to collaborate more with reforming constitutional lawyers.
Seed planted by Alan — 01 February 2013 @ 21:47