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The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

theguardian.com

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Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#81

Post by pasabagi »

jnwatson wrote: post #74

The most obvious difference between the American and British legislative systems is the presence of a foundational document like the Constitution. The British system is strictly about convention and precedent, whereas Americans have a little more explicit guidance from the Constitution. I think what we've learned as Americans in the last few years is that it isn't enough to have a foundational document. Convention an…

> Perhaps the idea that convention and precedent is the only thing holding the British system together makes it stronger.

Coronavirus has been a pretty good litmus test for which countries have good governments, and which countries do not. The UK has consistently led the charts in terms of deaths and infections. I think it shows the fundamental defectiveness of the system itself - a defectiveness that has been pretty visible for years if you looked at the country with a critical eye, but doesn't seem to be often acknowledged, since english people have a cultural prohibition against complaining.

Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#82

Post by spacedcowboy »

alasdair_ wrote: post #70
thesuitonym wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, is this process really that different than the usual process of legislation being crafted in private by people who aren't the Queen before it's presented? It is worrying that the Queen can just say no before legislation gets off the ground, but that's true of many of the more powerful MPs, too. I'm in the US, so I'm not exactly familiar with the process on your side of the pond, but over here, we h…

>It is worrying that the Queen can just say no before legislation gets off the ground The commonly-held belief in the UK is that the Queen gets to do this exactly one time before she is abolished completely, on the assumption that millions of people would riot if she used her power in such a direct fashion without a truly extreme reason (like a nuke blowing up Westminster or something).

Yep, and it's seen as a last bastion before a malevolent (even if elected) government invokes tyranny.

She'd have to be so sure that the populace would be behind her, and willing to risk the very existence of the monarchy. It'd take stopping a really "bad" thing for her to take that risk.

Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#83

Post by csours »

etrevino wrote: post #13

I used to work as a scholar of Britain (specifically executions in Early Modern England, but you pick up a lot along the way) and I've tried to explain to a lot of people the amount of influence and control that the monarch actually holds. I'm not sure that this is such a bad thing. The Queen can't create legislation, she can restrain it. She is purely a moderating influence in this sense. She could, in theory, name…

I just watched Cromwell (1970) the other day and if you know of a decent but approachable popular history of the civil war and protectorate I'd love a recommendation.

I don't know much about it, but the anachronisms in terminology were pretty hilarious.

Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#84

Post by ZoomerCretin »

etrevino wrote: post #13

I used to work as a scholar of Britain (specifically executions in Early Modern England, but you pick up a lot along the way) and I've tried to explain to a lot of people the amount of influence and control that the monarch actually holds. I'm not sure that this is such a bad thing. The Queen can't create legislation, she can restrain it. She is purely a moderating influence in this sense. She could, in theory, name…

>The Queen can't create legislation, she can restrain it. She is purely a moderating influence in this sense.

Assuming the only negative changes that can occur to a person or group's interests are from the government, this makes sense.

In reality, where we have enormous corporations who have the power and ability to negatively affect the lives of citizens in new ways previous legislators could not have envisioned, un-democratic checks against legislative action strongly benefit the powerful.

Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#85

Post by roelschroeven »

graeme wrote: post #77
roelschroeven wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It can't just be tossed without something to replace it. Why not? I admit I'm more familiar with the Belgian situation than the British Crown, but to me it always seems not very difficult to replace the monarch with almost nothing. I don't see why we need any kind of president, even though that's what people always talk when there's talk of doing away with the monarchy. The real leader of the country is the prime m…

The Belgian situation seems fairly dysfunctional. Is the monarch completely absent from politics? This happened in 2007-11: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007–2011_Belgian_political_cr... In Brazil in the 19th century liberal democrats thought a monarch was unnecessary, after 67 years of successful politics under a king. Upon abolition the country devolved into a long succession of military coups and dictatorial gove…

> The Belgian situation seems fairly dysfunctional. Is the monarch completely absent from politics?

The monarch appoints "preformateurs" and "formateur" who are elections start talks between people from the different political parties and (try to) form a cabinet, in different stages of the process. That's where he (or possibly she in a few decades, when Filip dies or abdicates and Elisabeth becomes Belgian's first Queen, if that's still a thing then) has by far the most influence in politics.

Some people he shouldn't even have that influence, and I'm inclined to agree. In any case, finding another process for that is probably the most difficult issue to deal with in case we would transform to a pure parliamentary democracy.

Reserve power ... I don't know. I don't think he has enough power for that. Maybe symbolically, maybe that counts for more than I think. Some say the king and/or the whole royal family is one of the few things that still hold Belgium more or less together.

If indeed having a figurehead can protect us from civil war and other kinds of chaos, then by all means, let us have a figurehead.

Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#86

Post by generalizations »

etrevino wrote: post #13

I used to work as a scholar of Britain (specifically executions in Early Modern England, but you pick up a lot along the way) and I've tried to explain to a lot of people the amount of influence and control that the monarch actually holds. I'm not sure that this is such a bad thing. The Queen can't create legislation, she can restrain it. She is purely a moderating influence in this sense. She could, in theory, name…

> Obviously there's nothing to force her to follow the laws, but that's true of any country.

Not quite. The laws that are unenforceable, because they apply to the 'person at the top', act as a bright line; in any country with a sufficiently capable citizenry, this line is the indicator that the 'person at the top' needs to be made to step down.

Edit. I'm thinking of the Magna Carta as an example, where the monarch was held accountable by the barons who forced him to sign. Seems like the barons make my point, since they're not planning on enforcing their agreement within the legal framework. One of the provisions in that document was:

> Under what historians later labelled "clause 61", or the "security clause", a council of 25 barons would be created to monitor and ensure John's future adherence to the charter.[44] If John did not conform to the charter within 40 days of being notified of a transgression by the council, the 25 barons were empowered by clause 61 to seize John's castles and lands until, in their judgement, amends had been made.

Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#87

Post by skissane »

retrac wrote: post #50
Chris2048 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And a republic. That said - what would happen to all the stuff owned by the crown? I'm not sure if the postal service still is, and the prisons could probably be let go - but I think there's a lot of land, especially in the south owned by the crown.

Property owned by the Crown is not the property of Elizabeth, as a person. If QE II were to abdicate, for example, she would not get to keep all of it. It's the property of the Crown, the office of the head of state. It belongs to the state, in practice. If she's advised to abdicate, she would, and she's advised to transfer all Crown property to a republic, she would. The royal family does have many billions in perso…

> Property owned by the Crown is not the property of Elizabeth, as a person.

The Crown and Queen Elizabeth II are different persons. Queen Elizabeth II is a natural person. The Crown is a legal person, a corporation sole – a corporation with only one member, who right now is Queen Elizabeth II. Actually the Crown is not a single corporation, but a number of legally distinct corporations which all have identical membership. There is "the Crown in Right of the United Kingdom", "the Crown in Right of Canada", "the Crown in Right of the Commonwealth of Australia", "the Crown in Right of New Zealand", etc. All up, there are 16 nations with Queen Elizabeth II as monarch, and each of those nations is a distinct corporation "the Crown in Right of X". But, also there exist distinct "the Crown in Right of X" corporations for each Australian state (6) and each Canadian province (10), and also each of the three British crown dependencies (Isle of Mann, Jersey and Guernsey). So there are 35 legal persons (corporations sole) "the Crown in Right of X", and one natural person who is presently the sole common member of all of them. Each of those 35 corporations has distinct assets, which in turn are distinct from the personal assets of the natural person called Elizabeth. If any of those 35 entities became a republic, the assets of the "Crown in Right of X" corporation would pass to its republican successor.

Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#88

Post by DaedPsyker »

User23 wrote: post #46

The Queen is also literally above the law and the military is sworn to her personally and not the government. Of course British history has shown the effectiveness of extralegal measures for dealing with bad monarchs so those powers are still limited.

The monarch isn’t above the law, it has been granted immunity from being sued but this is all entirely on the gift of parliament. Inside the robing room used just before she addresses the House of Lords is a copy of the death warrant for Charles I as a little reminder of who really is in charge.

Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#89

Post by s17n »

pasabagi wrote: post #81
jnwatson wrote: post #74

The most obvious difference between the American and British legislative systems is the presence of a foundational document like the Constitution. The British system is strictly about convention and precedent, whereas Americans have a little more explicit guidance from the Constitution. I think what we've learned as Americans in the last few years is that it isn't enough to have a foundational document. Convention an…

> Perhaps the idea that convention and precedent is the only thing holding the British system together makes it stronger. Coronavirus has been a pretty good litmus test for which countries have good governments, and which countries do not. The UK has consistently led the charts in terms of deaths and infections. I think it shows the fundamental defectiveness of the system itself - a defectiveness that has been pretty…

That's ridiculous - in the US, at least, our failure to contain the virus was clearly due more to a substantial portion of the population not wanting to contain it (and this ambivalence being correctly reflected in the government's actions) than any failure of governance.

Of course, these people were a minority, but that just leads to the question of the appropriate protection of minority rights in a democracy, to which there is no obviously correct answer.

Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#90

Post by JoeAltmaier »

willyt wrote: post #63
subsubzero wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like there are two groups of lords, one group has been heavily shown in the media(think Downton Abby or the aristocratic family having to sell or have tours of their estate). The other set of lords is not really shown in media and they are large landowners in London and other cities in Britain and are extremely wealthy and powerful, see the Grosvenor family - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Grosvenor,_7th…

Not really. You don’t have to be a landowner or an aristocrat to become a lord. The ‘Downtown Abbey’ style lords, called ‘hereditary peers’ are on their way out, there’s not many left. Most peers are appointed by the government of the day supposedly as a result of doing something useful for the country as a whole. I think that certain members of the clergy become peers by default, likewise top judges, ‘The Law Lords’…

814 hereditary peers left, half barons.
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