So here we have the executive, legislative and judicial that act as checks on each other. Then you have all the non official checks like the media, protests, activist groups, etc.
But as far as official checks, do other nations have different checks or is it mostly the executive, legislative and judicial? I know some nations have both a president and prime minister, how do they check each others powers?
The US has a bicameral legislature, some have a unicameral (only one legislative body). Do any nations have three or four legislative bodies or is it all one or two?
In the US judiciary we have three levels, do other nations have more or less?
Basically, are there extra layers of checks and balances in any other nations? Multiple executive branches, tricameral legislatures, four levels of courts, entirely new and unrelated checks unrelated to executive, legislative and judicial?
In Canada, the prime minister can, in principle, although not in practice, be checked by the parliament. If he has a majority government (which is usually, although by no means always the case), then he runs things. Any member of his party who votes against him can be expelled from the party and will not be allowed to run for that party in future elections. On the other hand, the members could rise up and choose a different prime minister, although I don’t think that has ever happened. The government can and sometimes is checked by the courts, but I think that is less common than in the US. There is a bill of rights, but a government can put in a bill the phrase, “notwithstanding the bill of rights” and negate it. But this so-called “notwithstanding” clause has hardly ever been invoked (except for a while the Quebec government was putting it into every law they passed to express their bitter opposition to the bill of rights and the whole constitution). But the biggest check seems to be the common sense of the government. But in a certain sense the PM is an elected dictator.
This sometimes works well. When Trudeau (pere) decided to put in medicare, he just did it. There was opposition, but he just did it. No one in the country (well, hardly anyone) would want to get rid of it, although it could well be improved.
Just let him try. This is absurd since the GG would not dare do anything or he would find himself ex-GG.
Yes, the senate can act as a significant break on parliament. But when Mulroney was having trouble with the senate where a majority had been appointed by Trudeau, he simply increased the size of the senate and appointed a dozen conservatives. Trudeau (fils) has tried to appoint non-partisan senators but I think it safe to say they will not oppose government legislation either.
Trudeau announced yesterday a new law legalizing pot with various restrictions. It is virtually certain to pass. It will be debated at some length and the opposition could propose amendments that Trudeau accepts, but it will pass. Nothing like this can happen in the US. Witness the recent AHCA debacle.
India has an unusual (initially unique, now adopted by Bangladesh) constitution which can be amended, but only to a limited degree; amendments may not alter the “basic structure” of the constitution. The judiciary is empowered to reject constitutional amendments which are inconsistent with the constitutional framework.
Turkey also has a sort-of-unique check: the military usually seizes power whenever the government is controlled by Islamists. While military coups are hardly unique, Turkey’s are unusual in that the military quickly cedes power back to the civilian structure shortly afterwards.
Just let him try. This is absurd since the GG would not dare do anything or he would find himself ex-GG.
Yes, the senate can act as a significant break on parliament. But when Mulroney was having trouble with the senate where a majority had been appointed by Trudeau, he simply increased the size of the senate and appointed a dozen conservatives. Trudeau (fils) has tried to appoint non-partisan senators but I think it safe to say they will not oppose government legislation either.
Trudeau announced yesterday a new law legalizing pot with various restrictions. It is virtually certain to pass. It will be debated at some length and the opposition could propose amendments that Trudeau accepts, but it will pass. Nothing like this can happen in the US. Witness the recent AHCA debacle.
“Senator, here’s another check.” “Great, add it to my balance.”
I’ll just note that the three levels aren’t independent of one another, for purposes of serving as a check upon the other branches of government. It’s one court system.
We do have fifty other court systems in the states, but generally speaking, they are not in a position to restrain the federal government.
Only because Parliament usually finds itself more or less on the side of the people, or at least not so far off that side that people would want the big lever to be pulled. Just because power is typically unused doesn’t mean it is not a check.
When Steven Harper wanted to prorogue parliament to avoid of vote of no confidence in 2008, there was significant support for the idea that the GG would say “no” and prevent SH from abusing procedure. If she had, I don’t know that there would be career-ending backlash.
Thailand used to have a similar system, if we replace “whenever the government is controlled by Islamists” with “whenever government corruption is particularly egregious even by Thai standards.” It worked OK — military governments were generally no more competent than civilian governments but at least police and parliamentary corruption were bypassed.
Recently in exasperation, the junta gave itself more permanent powers. Since power generally corrupts, this is likely to prove unfortunate.
First, she didn’t. Second proroguing parliament (adjourning it) was not an act of parliament, just an decision of the PM. Although there was pressure on her to veto it, she didn’t. Never exercised power eventually disappears. I have heard that the last time the GG disallowed an act of parliament (I think it was in the 20s, long before I moved here), there were riots in the streets.
Withholding royal assent would certainly be incredibly unlikely and reserved for extremely unusual circumstances. A more likely check on legislative power in Canada is the appointed Senate, and even that is pretty rare.
By and large I’d say that under the Westminster parliamentary system as practiced in Commonwealth countries like the UK, Canada, and Australia, there are fewer checks and balances on legislative authority in large part because the executive branch isn’t distinctly separate as it is in the US. The prime minister and his cabinet all sit in the legislature, and if the government in power holds a majority there, then there is little to stop them from passing whatever legislation they want except for political impact and constitutional scrutiny by the courts. The majority leader of the legislative branch and the head of the executive branch are the same person, who is simply called the head of government (although not head of state).
The differences in this respect between the US presidential system and those parliamentary systems are largely seen in both cases as being “by design”, reflecting a different philosophy of governance, and in particular, the American tradition of a more constrained and more limited government.
I’m afraid I disagree with this summary. Yes, the Prime Minister has a great deal of power: but he only has that power so long as he has the backing of the government caucus, which is a sub-set of the elected members of the House of Commons. If the PM loses the support of the caucus, he’s out. Less dramatically, if the caucus is badly split over a policy, then the PM has trouble introducing a government bill. He won’t risk a defeat on a government bill, which could happen if a significant minority of the caucus is opposed to it.
However, those fights play out behind the scenes, in the caucus rooms, in the corridors, in the hospitality suites at the party convention. They don’t usually play out on the floor of the Commons, because it is always in the interests of the party as a whole to present a united front to the world, especially in the Commons.
One of the best examples of the elected members of the caucus getting rid of the PM occurred in 2002-2003. In 2000, Prime Minister Chrétien led the Liberals to their third straight majority government. In three elections, he’d dispatched three leaders from other parties: Prime Minister Campbell in 1993 (didn’t even win her own seat), Preston Manning in 1997, and Stockwell Day of the Alliance in 2000. He was at the top of his game.
Except: his Finance Minister, Paul Martin, was getting impatient.
Martin had lost the leadership to Chrétien a decade before, and he still wanted his chance as PM. There was some reason to think that Chrétien would bow out before the end of the third term, opening the way for Martin to go for the leadership. Then at the Liberal Party Convention in 2002, Chrétien announced he was staying on. Martin and his supporters met in a hotel suite to discuss ways to get rid of Chrétien. Chrétien heard about it and fired Martin from Cabinet. It was war to the knife, and Martin gradually won. The breaking point for Chrétien was when he lost the support of caucus, and then, master politician that he was, he knew he had to throw in his cards. He last sat in the Commons in November of 2003, and formally resigned at the Liberal Convention in 2004, where Martin won the leadership and became Prime Minister. (Bono was playing the convention and joked, as he got a standing ovation, that “I’m the only thing that those two agree on.”)
So yes, the PM is powerful, but his power only lasts as long as he has the support of the caucus. In Chrétien’s case, it took 18 months for a determined opponent to bring him down, but once he lost caucus support to Martin, he was done.
For a very detailed account of the Chrétien-Martin feud, see the wiki article on Chrétien - Third Mandate.
For a similar recent example at the provincial level, see the wiki article on Allison Redford, late Premier of Alberta, who was similarly forced out of office when she lost the support of her caucus.
Judicial review is alive and well under the Charter. The Supreme Court has struck down a large number of laws, both federal and provincial, since the Charter came into force in 1982. As in the US, there are those who decry “activist judges” and argue that the court has supplanted the elected branch, etc. The Charter covers much the same issues as the US Bill of Rights, and in some areas provides constitutional protections that have no counterpart in the US, for example in relation to language rights and aboriginal rights.
As well, judicial review under the division of legislative powers between the federal Parliament and the provinces is a much stronger check on the powers of the federal government than is the case in the United States.
The notwithstanding clause only can apply to certain provisions of the Charter, and only for a limited time, to allow the electorate to determine, at the next general election, if they support the government. It is an attempt to balance parliamentary supremacy/democratic accountability with minority rights/judicial review. The federal Parliament has never invoked the clause. Some provinces have done so, but rarely, once the PQ governments of Levesque/Johnson lost office and the new Liberal government (Bourassa)stopped routinely using the clause for every bill.
Trudeau (père) did not bring in Medicare. At the federal level, it started when Prime Minister Diefenbaker, a Conservative, appointed Justice Emmett Hall of the Supreme Court to chair a Royal Commission of Inquiry into health insurance. When Hall reported in favour of adopting the Saskatchewan model of medicare across the country, PM Diefenbaker had lost the election and Prime Minister Pearson and his Cabinet (Liberals) dealt with the issue. Pearson’s Cabinet was split on the issue, but eventually decided to bring in medicare at the national level. Significantly, the medicare bill that they brought in did not provide as broad coverage as Hall recommended, precisely because the Cabinet and the caucus were split on the issue. They brought in what they could agree on, as a collective decision, not simply at the diktat of the Prime Minister. They also had to be careful not to go so far as to lose the support of the provincial governments, notably Ontario, which only accepted medicare grudgingly.
And that last point raises another significant check on the federal government, which does not seem to be the case in the US: the Provinces. Our federal government is not as strong as the US federal government (notably in the area of the equivalent to the commerce clause). We have the equivalent of a 10th Amendment that truly protects the legislative jurisdiction of the provinces, and the courts have interpreted those provincial powers quite broadly. It is rare that there is any major issue where the federal government can implement policies that do not require some degree of co-operation from the provinces. That acts as a considerable check on the federal government.
It’s not just in principle. The (unelected) Senate can reject any bill that the (elected) Commons has passed. It’s true that it normally will defer to the judgment of the Commons, but not always. For example, the reason Canada does not have any criminal restrictions on abortion is because the Senate rejected the abortion bill passed by the Commons, and Prime Minister Mulroney gave up on trying to pass any abortion legislation.
It was that decision by the Senate, overruling the Commons and the government, that resulted in Canada being unique in the western countries in not having any abortion restrictions. That power of the Senate is a significant potential restraint on the government, although rarely exercised.
Yes, it’s certain to pass, but that doesn’t mean there is no check on the PM’s powers. Rather, it means that the bill has been vetted and approved by the Cabinet and the caucus behind the scenes, and the government MPs as a whole accept it. All of the Liberal MPs ran on decriminalization as part of the election manifesto of 2015, so course they will support it.
It’s not that the bill will pass simply because Trudeau wants it. It’s the other way around: Trudeau wouldn’t have introduced it into the House if he didn’t have the support of his caucus and Cabinet on the bill. That’s the case for all government bills: the chance for government MPs to debate them is in the Cabinet and the caucus before they ever see the light of day in the Commons. Once they pass those stages, then of course the government MPs will vote for the government bills in the Commons, because they’ve had their input before the bill is introduced.
That just shows that the Republican caucus is a check on the Republican Caucus.
Proroguing isn’t just adjourning; it’s ending the current session of Parliament. It’s an executive act of the monarch, acting on the advice of the Prime Minister. True, the Gov Gen took the PM’s advice, but not before she sought outside constitutional advice from one of the leading constitutional scholars of Canada, Peter Hogg. The possibility that the Gov Gen could refuse to accept the PM’s advice made his decision to seek prorogation a hot political and public topic for some time. That was a political check on the PM, because it forced him to justify his decision on prorogation to the House and eventually to the people.
Refusing royal assent and disallowance are two different things. The Gov Gen of Canada has never refused royal assent to a bill. The Gov Gen did occasionally disallow a federal bill, on the instructions of the British government, but that has not happened for at least a century now.
Hari, I’m not sure of the rioting example you’re giving. Could it be the rioting in 1848 that resulting in the burning of the Parliament buildings in Montreal? But that wasn’t because the Gov Gen had refused royal assent. The riots were triggered because the Gov Gen had granted royal assent to a controversial bill, on the advice of his Canadian Cabinet, thus instituting responsible government in the Province of Canada.
Exactly. The Westminster system operates on the assumption that once a government is elected, it should be able to put its platform into operations, since that’s what the people presumably voted for. If the government is not able to do that, or not able to pass a budget, then there are new elections to resolve the deadlock.
On the other hand, in the State, deadlock seems to be valued as a feature, not a bug.
