421–430 of 599 posts
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> So if after an election there are two different coalitions who both claim to be the best chance at a stable government, who makes the choice to go with one of them, or to call fresh elections? We, here in the rest of the world, use a magic number to determine that. 51% (or 50% + 1).
Belgium does a great job of proving that that doesn't quite always work.
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> The British system is strictly about convention and precedent, whereas Americans have a little more explicit guidance from the Constitution. This is complicated by the supreme court which is far more political in the US than the rest of the anglosphere, to the point where it's arguably a third chamber of legislature. They have a lot more latitude to reinterpret the constitution as they wish than anywhere else and t…
> if you asked a random citizen of Canada, Australia, New Zealand or the UK to name a single supreme court judge they'd probably be unable to Don't each of these countries feature sovereign Parliaments [1]? Congress is not sovereign. It is one of three co-equal branches of government. This, the separation of powers, was a deliberate decision by America's founders. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_sover…
> Don't each of these countries feature sovereign Parliaments [1]?
Australia does not have a sovereign Parliament. The Parliament of Australia is subject to the Constitution of Australia, and the High Court of Australia can and sometimes even does invalidate Acts of the Australian Parliament as violating that constitution. So in that regard, the Parliament of Australia has limited powers just like the US Congress does. The big difference is that while the US has three coequal branches, Australia only has two – the legislative and the judicial branches. In Australia, while the executive branch is theoretically equal to the legislative branch, in practice the executive is subordinated to the legislature.
Actually the question of whether even the UK Parliament is sovereign is debated. Keep in mind the UK has three legal systems: (1) England and Wales, (2) Scotland, (3) Northern Ireland. Northern Irish law is based on English law, so Northern Irish constitutional law has at best minor differences from English constitutional law. By contrast, Scottish law is a completely distinct legal system, with a very different heritage (based on Continental legal system, ultimately tracing its origin to the laws of the Roman Empire), and that includes a distinct body of constitutional law. And while it is true that parliamentary sovereignty is a fundamental principle of English constitutional law, its status under Scottish constitutional law is debated. In the 1953 case MacCormick v Lord Advocate, the Lord President Lord Cooper (the most senior judge in all of Scotland) said that "the principle of the unlimited sovereignty of Parliament is a distinctively English principle which has no counterpart in Scottish Constitutional Law", and left open the possibility that if the Parliament of the UK passed an Act which was a clear violation of the 1706 Treaty of Union which created the United Kingdom – for example, if the Parliament of the UK tried to abolish the independent Scottish legal system and impose English law on Scotland – the Scottish Courts would have the power to invalidate that Act. In practice this question is unlikely to ever arise, because it is politically inconceivable that the Parliament of the UK would ever actually pass such a law. (The case was about whether Queen Elizabeth II was allowed to use the regnal number II in Scotland, despite the fact that Scotland had never had a Queen Elizabeth I – the court ruled that the Treaty of Union said nothing on the topic, so the Queen's choice of what regnal number she used could not be said to violate the Treaty.)
To answer the original question, I definitely remember the name of one former Australian High Court Justice – Michael Kirby (who is famous for being the first openly gay High Court justice). I am a bit of a law nerd, but I don't think you need to be a law nerd to remember that.
It's kind of strange. 20 years ago there was the House of Commons making laws, with the House of Lords checking the laws, and the Queen who signed the votes. Now, the House of Commons has made the House of Lords something that can be ignored, and now they also want to do away with the Queen. I think it is dangerous to see the House of Commons gaining more and more power over the country, without any regulatory body b…
I'm confused about your objection. That's how it works in almost every modern democratic country. The check and balance to the power of the current government is the constitution, with a national constitutional court enforcing it.
Almost every modern democracy has a bicameral legislature.
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This is the point that people who say "but what about tourism?" completely and spectacularly miss. Versailles is one of the most visited places in the world. Having no royal people in there makes zero difference to that. We could have the tourism without the actual royals, 100% no problem there
Actually it does - the experience of visiting Versailles, a sort of preserved museum that exist solely for tourism, is entirely different from visiting an actual royal palace. Despite the historical significance it was one of the least memorable places I’ve been to in France.
[0]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/991925/visitors-palace-o...
[1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/373081/uk-royal-tourism-...
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This is the point that people who say "but what about tourism?" completely and spectacularly miss. Versailles is one of the most visited places in the world. Having no royal people in there makes zero difference to that. We could have the tourism without the actual royals, 100% no problem there
Actually it does - the experience of visiting Versailles, a sort of preserved museum that exist solely for tourism, is entirely different from visiting an actual royal palace. Despite the historical significance it was one of the least memorable places I’ve been to in France.
These are not the sorts of places that people typically visit on overseas holidays more than once. So once the ticket has been bought, whether or not it is "an actual royal palace" is irrelevant.
Of course people like to feel the glamour of being close to the mystique of living wealth, but once an attraction is firmly on the circuit it hardly matters. See Tower of London, Blenheim Palace, Edinburgh Castle, Hampton Court Palace, etc.
According to Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, Buckingham Palace would be around the 70th most visited attraction in the country, hardly a sign that you need a living monarchy to sustain tourism - https://www.alva.org.uk/details.cfm?p=423
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It might have been a mistake to use the word 'cute', monarchies are an ugly business. But countries where the powers in charge are closely balanced enough that the transition away from a monarchy to something else slowly (maybe leaving the monarchy itself intact as in the UK) are much better than the ripping off the bandaid approach seen in Germany or France. Moderate political change is generally a better idea than…
I think 'cute' is probably a good word - amongst other reasons to visit London, a portion of tourists want to take photos with the silly people with tall red hats, see Buckingham palace and then buy a mug with a photo of the queen on it. People crowd the streets to see if the silly old smiley rich lady will wave at you from her golden carriage. People listen to the queens speech not because they look at her as a tyra…
If you're a foreigner apparently you'll be pushed to the front for a good view.
Also cute!
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I'm confused about your objection. That's how it works in almost every modern democratic country. The check and balance to the power of the current government is the constitution, with a national constitutional court enforcing it.
You are mistaken. Almost every modern democracy has a bicameral legislature. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism
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> the British people have a specific human being to which they can feel the same loyalty In particular so do the British Armed Forces, who swear allegiance to the Crown [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Armed_Forces#Command_o...
I thought the Navy didn't. I recall something about how they weren't eligible for certain ceremonial roles that the army and RAF were due to never having sworn an oath to the crown.
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> 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. She used her powers to get an exemption from transparency laws with regards to her personal wealth: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/07/revealed-que... , and Charles did the same to ban his tenants from purchasing freeholds: https://www.theguardian.com…
> Also, every member of the royal family should be stripped of their wealth and exiled. From a democratic/ideological perspective you might be right. On the other hand, having a royal family it cute -- doesn't that count for something :) I live in Denmark where we also pay the royal family some money, few privileges, etc.. My personal pocket philosophy is that the money we pay the royal family is the cost of a peacef…
Defending state supported inherited power, which has already shown to be corrupted and have abused that power, by saying it's "cute" is like saying pirates murdering and stealing are romantisised to being cute.
Don't confuse watching and enjoying Pirates of the Caribbean with thinking it's a good idea to murder and steal on merchant ships.
Russian oligarchs and mafioso also have their charm, but don't confuse The Godfather part II with a good idea.
It's kind of strange. 20 years ago there was the House of Commons making laws, with the House of Lords checking the laws, and the Queen who signed the votes. Now, the House of Commons has made the House of Lords something that can be ignored, and now they also want to do away with the Queen. I think it is dangerous to see the House of Commons gaining more and more power over the country, without any regulatory body b…
Recently Johnson overruled the House of Lords appointment commission to give someone a peerage that was involved in a corruption scandal[1].
That along with the the lies used to the win the Brexit referendum have robbed me of any faith in our current system of first past the post government so I see the need for more checks and balances.
Unfortunately, the current system seems open to abuse such as Charles using this royal privilege to keep people from owning homes on his enormous estate lands.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson...
