We often mention the differences in American states in regards to stuff like gun control and same sex marriage, and how this shows how powerful American states can be. This got me wondering are American states the most powerful states in countries with federal structures? Specifically, how do they compare to Australian states or Canadian provinces?
Don’t Canadian provinces have nullification powers over at least some federal laws?
I could be wrong, but I believe that Swiss Cantons are pretty independant.
You might be thinking of Section 33 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms known as the notwithstanding clause.
Section 33.
(1) Parliament or the legislature of a province may expressly declare in an Act of Parliament or of the legislature, as the case may be, that the Act or a provision thereof shall operate notwithstanding a provision included in section 2 or sections 7 to 15.
(2) An Act or a provision of an Act in respect of which a declaration made under this section is in effect shall have such operation as it would have but for the provision of this Charter referred to in the declaration.
(3) A declaration made under subsection (1) shall cease to have effect five years after it comes into force or on such earlier date as may be specified in the declaration.
(4) Parliament or the legislature of a province may re-enact a declaration made under subsection (1).
(5) Subsection (3) applies in respect of a re-enactment made under subsection (4).
This gets my vote as well. They seem more independent than the US ones.
In some ways it’s a definitional question: If the component states have too much power, then one starts calling them nations themselves instead of states. One could argue, for instance, that the European Union allows even more autonomy to its component parts than the US gives to its… Except that most wouldn’t argue that, because most people consider the EU to be supernational. But the US, in its earliest days, wasn’t so different from what the EU is like now.
Previous thread on the subject.
No they don’t. To the contrary the federal government does have the right (although I not sure it has ever been used) to veto provincial legislation. And the British crown retains the right (it was last used about 90 years and resulted in riots) to veto federal acts.
The Swiss take it to the point that citizenship is granted by the cantons and rubber stamped by the federal government. On the other hand, it is really the communities that grant citizenship and it is rubber stamped by the canton. A Swiss once told me that the Swiss federal government ran the railroads, the post offices and, above all, the army, the rest being left to the cantons. Probably an exaggeration.
Are there any cases where a canton and/or the federal government refused to rubber stamp a citizenship application or would be likely to do so? E.g. if a local community wanted to grant citizenship to a notorious terrorist, a person with multiple convictions for violent felonies in their home country, etc., would the canton or federal government be likely to step in and exercise discretion in refusing citizenship, or would this be similar to the British Monarch vetoing legislation proposed by Parliament - legally possible, but a very bad political move?
Not anymore it doesn’t. The Canadian monarch can still withhold Royal Assent, but she can only follow the advice of her Canadian ministers (& it’s hard to imagine a plausible scenario where the PM would advice her to do that). It’s never been withheld at the federal level, but has been withheld at the provincial level. The last time was in the 1930s when Alberta tried to put the banking industry under provincial control.
AFAIK, while the rules regarding being naturalised are determined federally, the application of those rules is handled by the cantons. So if you apply to be naturalised as a citizen of (say) the Canton of Vaud, the Canton will apply the federally-determined rules to your case and determine that, under those rules, you are, or are not, naturalised as a citizen of the Canton. If you do become a citizen of the Canton then you are, ipso facto, a citizen of the Swiss Confederation also; no further decision or action on the part of the federal government is required.
If the federal government has a problem with you becoming a citizen, what they need to do is not refuse to “rubber stamp” the decision of the Canton because the decision doesn’t need even a federal rubber stampt to be effective. They need to persuade the Canton not to make that decision in the first place, or they need to get the Canton to reverse the decision (if that is possible - I don’t know) or they need to challenge the validity of the Canton’s decision in the courts.
My guess is the 7 Emirates that comprise the UAE.
There’s no straight comparison between the US states and the Canadian provinces, because the states have more power in some areas (criminal law, militias) and the provinces have more power in other areas (civil law, civil rights, courts).
The states have the criminal law power. The provinces do not. In Canada, only the federal Parliament can pass criminal laws like murder, theft, and so on. This “police power” is a major area of state power, and is something that the provinces lack entirely (but see the discussion of civil rights and the courts, below). However, the provinces do have provincial police forces, and as a matter of practice, the provinces are responsible for prosecuting criminal offences enacted by Parliament.
The states also have the militia power, currently exercised by setting up National Guard units. Canadian provinces have no equivalent power. The military is the exclusive domain of the federal government.
Taken together, the police power and the militia power are two very important powers of the American states, and sound very much like sovereign powers. If that’s what you’re interested in, the states look much more powerful than the provinces.
On the other hand, in the Canadian system, the division of powers between the federal government and the provinces is much more clearly laid out, and the federal powers have not been treated as expansively as the federal powers in the US. In particular, our federal trade and commerce power has been interpreted much more narrowly than the US commerce clause, and the provincial power over property and civil law has been interpreted more broadly than the state powers. If something falls within provincial power over property and civil law, the federal Parliament can’t intrude. As a very clear example, we don’t have a national securities regulator, like the SEC in the states, because the Supreme Court has held that Parliament lacks constitutional power to create one.
Then there’s the area of civil rights. The federal Parliament has a very limited power to legislate in the area of civil rights (called human rights up here). For the most part, human rights fall under provincial jurisdiction, and Parliament cannot enact a civil rights law that binds the provinces, unlike s. 1983. Nor can Parliament regulate provincial elections, which are controlled solely by the provinces themselves - no federal civil rights laws that govern provincial elections.
Finally, the federal courts have very limited jurisdiction, both in terms of subject matter and personal jurisdiction. In particular, the federal courts have no jurisdiction over the provinces, except in very limited exceptional circumstances. So you don’t have the provinces having to defend themselves in federal court.
So overall, which are more powerful, the states or the provinces?
No. Only the federal Parliament can repeal a federal law. If there is a conflict between a federal law and a provincial law, the federal law is paramount.
As Grey mentioned, you may be thinking of s. 33 of the Charter. This provision allows Parliament to override certain provisions of the Charter for federal laws, and each province can override those provisions for their own laws. However, the provinces cannot use s. 33 to override a federal law, an Parliament cannot use it to override a provincial law.
There was one federal Act which was disallowed: the Oaths Act of 1873, because it apparently gave the Commons and the Senate a broader power than was authorised by s. 18 of the Constitution Act, 1867.
The last provincial law to be disallowed was an Alberta statute of 1943, which tried to prevent the sale of lands to enemy aliens and hutterites for the duration of the War.
The last time a provincial bill was reserved was in 1961, when the Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan reserved a bill on his own motion. The federal government of Prime Minister Diefenbaker rapidly granted royal assent.
I believe that was the consensus in the earlier thread linked to by Heracles up thread.
Ooh, didn’t think of them (I consider them independent countries, but it is the UAE as an entity, isn’t it?) OK, switching my vote.
The National Guard doesn’t really represent a state power, given that the federal government can deploy the Guard against a state’s wishes.
Who creates and pays for the National Guard? Is it not the states, acting under state law?
Where does Spain appear on this spectrum? Spain seems to make a great deal of being made up of “autonomous communities,” is this just political spin?