The Royal Perogative Essay

'The House of Lords is now more effective than the House of Commons in checking government power'. Discuss

To determine if the Prime Minister has too much power there are a few things that need to be considered. The first is the responsibilities of the Prime Minister and the power these responsibly give the position. Looking at how much power the Prime Minister has in relation to the amount of responsibilities placed on that government role will give insights into the necessities of that power. Next, reviewing the history of powers the Prime Minister has over the years will show a timeline of a gradual increase in power. Finally, to determine if the Prime Minister has too much power recent events must be discussed in which the Prime Minister has abused their powers. To fully understand how the amount of power the Prime Minister has can impact the government, there will be a focus on one specific example of who calls elections throughout. Overall, in examining the responsibilities and powers of the Prime Minister in relation to the

Political thinkers Rousseau, Locke and Montesqieu claimed that the powers of government should be limited, divided and checked. The principle is that there should be a division of government executive, legislative and judiciary powers into three separate arms or institutions that act separately and are independent of one another (members of one branch cannot be members of either of the other two). Australia’s constitution separated powers by delegating the legislative power to Federal parliament (s.1), executive power to the Governor General (s.61) and the Judiciary to the High Court (s.71). However due to Westminster conventions (adopted from the British system of parliament) commonly practiced by the Australia government, the members of the executive (cabinet) are selected from the legislative by the Prime Minister (going against the concept of having no cross-branched members). The PM (also Westminster convention) is not mentioned in the constitution and yet exercised executive power; for example in 2003 PM John Howard exercises (s.68) by sending troops to Iraq. The constitution also provides the executive with the power to appoint the High Court Judge (s.72) and thus is could be argued that the executive has power over the Judiciary in that sense; However the constitution actively safeguards the position of the Judiciary by stating the High Court Judge “Shall not be removed except by the Governor-General in Council, on an address from both Houses of the

the right to make or unmake any law whatever; and further, that no person or body is recognised by the law of England as having a right to override or set aside the legislation of Parliament,”. Later however, he did admit that the description of parliamentary sovereignty has changed from what it was in the year 1885 and parliamentary sovereignty has undergone a change.

These sorts of powers would generally be associated with a President, not a Prime Minister.

The Supremacy of the monarchy is the monarchical state of being superior more than all others in power which refers to the Bristish Law’s called Magna Carta, common law and precedent. The Magna Carta is a charter that King John of England was forced to seal and sign the Magna Carta, otherwise he would be considered shameful and unjust. Magna Carta is still one of the most influential documents that is a part of our law which exhibits the idea of liberation of citizens. King Henry II developed a system of travelling judges (circuit judges) who would visit villages, resolve conflicts, heard cases and created new laws which is now considered common law. According to the textbook, common law has three meanings. It refers to the law that comes from Britain, it means a law that is common is all… law that applies to all subjects in the land and it also means law that is based on the best decision of judges. Common law is the law that is the same for every individual and should be obeyed by everyone equally and ethically. Common law is also seen as a precedent because the past decisions of the judges were recorded and were used for alike cases or conflicts. In short, the Supremacy of The Monarchy developed from the Magna Carta, common law, court system and precedent that helped our Canadian law develop to make it

Describe at least three provisions of the Constitution that provide a means of preventing the abuse or misuse of government power. Explain how these provisions work in our system of government today.

In the constitutional monarchy, the resident Governor-General 99% of the time carries out ceremonial tasks, however in the unlikely case that the Prime Minister is acting against the constitution or if he/she can’t guarantee safe passage of supply or if he/she lose confidence of the House of Reps. This along with other reserved powers of the Governor-General allow for the country to function smoothly. As may be alluded to by the left-wing progressives, the reserved powers of the Governor-General have only been used once in history to avoid the country going into economic meltdown since the Prime Minister couldn’t secure supply for the budget. From the conservative view, since the Queen’s representative is a resident of Australia they will only make decisions first and foremost with the best interest of the nation at heart. Another issue in a republican system which the constitutional monarchy would solve is the likelihood of a dictatorship. Polls suggest that if we were to become a republic, they want to vote in a president. However, the problem with this model is that the executive president will hold the ability to enforce views and powers which may be seen as presidential oversight. Nonetheless, he may be able to do that. This scenario would be disastrous if a

For many years it has been argued that parliamentary sovereignty has, and still is, being eroded. As said by AV Dicey, the word ‘sovereignty’ is used to describe the idea of “the power of law making unrestricted by any legal limit”. Parliamentary sovereignty is a principle of the UK constitution, stating that Parliament is the supreme legal authority in the UK, able to create and remove any law. This power over-rules courts and all other jurisdiction. It also cannot be entrenched; this is where all laws passed by the party in government can be changed by future parliaments. In recent years sovereignty of parliament has been a

The power of the crown and the authority of the government is limited by the Declaration of Man and the Citizen. One situation where the government is limited is where “Men are born free and remain equal in rights.” (1789, Art, 1, DRMC.) The government must give all men equal rights. The rights of man include “liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.” (1789, Art, 2, DRMC.) Both the power of the crown and the authority of the government are limited by (1789, Art, 3, DRMC.) “no individual can exercise authority which does not emanate from it expressly.” If authority does not originate directly from the crown or a member of government, they may not exercise said authority. “The law has the right to prohibit only those actions harmful to society.” (1789, Art, 5, DRMC.) Neither the power of the crown nor government can prohibit an individual from doing something that is not harmful to society or force an individual to do “what it does not order” by obstructing or changing the law. “The right to concur personally or through their representative in its formation… must be the same for everyone.” Authority must give the same rights to everyone to “concur personally or through their representative.” (1789, Art, 6, DRMC.) In Article 8, the government or power of crown may only punish a person if “strictly and plainly necessary.” (1789, Art, 8, DRMC.) If unneccessary, a person may not be penalized by government or the power of the crown. Individuals

Before the Magna Carta, the monarch has all the power, and could do whatever the monarch wishes, today that would be considered being above the law. Diminishing the power of government workers, section twenty-four states "No sheriff, constable, coroners, or other royal are hold to lawsuits that should be held by the royal justices (Langton 24)". Stating no government official is above the law with no exceptions. This is to provide a uniform system of justice. Ruling under an absolute monarchy, the monarch could have someone arrested and imprisoned for no apparent reason. Imprisonment with no reason is abolished by section thirty-nine in the Magna Carta, it states "no free man shall have seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or his possessions, outlawed or exiled […] except by lawful of his equals or by the law (Langton 39)". This states the monarch is no longer allowed to punish people unless found guilty by the law or by a jury. Section thirty-nine guarantees the individual convicted shall have a jury of one's peers, this section is one of the most crucial out of the document. The Magna Carta stated that no royal or government official is above the law, including the imprisonment of an individual unless for a valid reason and found

“Parliamentary sovereignty is no longer, if it ever was, absolute” (Lord Hope). Discuss with reference to at least three challenges to the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. Parliamentary sovereignty is the concept that Parliament has the power to repeal, amend or create any law it wishes and therefore no body in the UK can challenge its legal validity. There are many people who would argue that this is a key principle to the UK Constitution, on the other hand, there are those who strongly believe that this idea is one of the past, and that the idea of the UK Parliament being sovereign is false. One of these people is Lord Hope, who said “Parliamentary sovereignty is no longer, if it ever was, absolute”. During the last 50 years there have been a variety of developments that have proved to be a challenge for the legitimacy of parliamentary sovereignty, and the ones which will be examined in this essay are: the devolution of powers to the Scottish Parliament; The United Kingdom’s entry into the European Union in 1973; and finally the power of judicial review. Starting with the devolution of powers, these challenges will all be evaluated when discussing whether or not the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty applies to the United Kingdom. Westminster’s sovereignty has been gradually diminishing over time as varying amounts of power have been devolved to Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland. In this essay, the devolution of powers to the Scottish Parliament will be

Dicey named ‘conventions’ the non-legal rules that regulate the way legal rules are applied . Prerogative powers are legal powers held by the crown but exercised by government without the authority from parliament. There is no doubt about their importance to the British constitution but their unwritten nature has caused disputes regarding their extent. Therefore some believe that conventions and prerogative powers should be codified. This could be in legal or non-legal form. Codification might clarify their existence and extent; neither form however will generate a more effective constitution.

The royal prerogative, Charles gave credence to the belief that it was within the king’s power to make decisions that were beyond the capability of parliament. Naturally it was very easy for a king to

This means that after Parliament’s majority party, mostly from the House of Commons, had chosen someone they saw fit to serve as their leader, the sovereign formally named the elected official as the prime minister. An example is when Queen Victoria was asked to name Sir Robert Peel, who was part of the Tory party, as her prime minister after Lord Melbourne’s Whig government had to resign. In addition, while the government’s executive branch was composed of the cabinet, prime minister, and department minister, the “legislative branch included the sovereign, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons,” with the Commons being the “more powerful lawmaking body” (par. 23). While both Houses could initiate a law, the Commons had the the ultimate authority