I’d answer that if it were even close to be being analogous to my post about Royal Assent.
The answer to the OP depends on the current popularity of the monarchy and the government.
It’s not a perfect analogy, but it is analogous. The ability of the U.S. Supreme Court to invalidate laws and the grounds by which it may do so are not explicit in the U.S. Constitution, but are based on legal and political principles and precedent. Nevertheless, it is perfectly clear that it is NOT he job of the Supreme Court to overrule the elected branches of government based on foreign policy considerations, even if it it to prevent a war. Likewise, although her ancestors had more broad discretion, it is perfectly clear that the monarch’s job currently is NOT to withhold Royal Assent based on anything less that an already extant constitutional crisis, and certainly not based on foreign policy considerations, even if it is to prevent a war.
Absolutely. There’s a “soft power” ability to say to the PM “Are you absolutely sure?”, with (in the case of the present monarch) the accompanying weight of experience (we never know, but I can quite imagine something along the lines of “I well remember Mr Churchill saying to me… and you’ll recall the difficulties Anthony Eden got into…”). But where George V was actively communicating personally with his Russian and German cousins in 1914, any whiff nowadays of independent royal diplomacy to avert a war would be far too redolent of the anxieties about Edward VIII wanting to run his own foreign policy (fitfully and incompetently as well, in his case).
The only case in which the monarch would have any capacity or responsibility for independent judgement would be if, in effect, Parliament can produce no government and for some reason new elections are impracticable/impossible - suppose some situation like France in 1940.
Yes, but it doesn’t have to be as dire as that. The monarch could have a role in a hung parliament situation where it is hard to determine which party has the best chance, or any chance, or forming a government.
A wise monarch and/or one who want to wants to preserve the monarchy will do this in a way that has the best chance of being perceived as impartial and non-partisan.
Having the monarch, as a backstop to limit the gridlock of a hung parliament, greatly reduces the chances of government shutdown as happen in the US every decade or so. While the cost of US-style governmental shutdowns, for the UK, can’t be precisely measured, it’s probably more, averaged over the years, than the £36 million estimated annual monarchy cost commonly cited on the web.
In addition, the monarchy pays for itself by fostering tourism.
Or in the aftermath of a major disaster (e.g. a major meteor strike) where Parliament is largely dead and the monarch is the rallying point for a shattered country, but even then only until elections are held, and he or she would likely govern through the Privy Council.
But this has nothing to do with a courts ruling something is unconstitutional. This is like the President vetoing a law because he feels it is unconstitutional which is his right as long as he puts it in writing to Congress.
I’m not sure what the antecedent to “this” is in those two sentences. The Queen withholding consent is actually much more like the Supreme Court overturning legislation than like the president vetoing something. Despite superficial similarities and some historical lines of development from one to the other, the Queen is not the head of the Executive branch of government in Britain, and her role is very different.
The president in the American system is democratically elected and is expected and required to play an active role in politics and to serve as a balance to and a check on the power of the other two branches. One of his duties is to endorse legislation passed by the Congress or to veto it based on his own political considerations. Signing and vetoing legislation is not ruling on its constitutionality. He may veto legislation because he believes it is unconstitutional, but he is not required to. Many presidents have signed legislation they personally believed was unconstitutional, and have attached signing statements explaining this. Nor does a president have to sign legislation merely because it is constitutional. He can veto it for any reason or no reason and is not required to justify his decision or to base it on any specific reasoning. It is the president’s prerogative to sign or veto legislation as he sees fit.
As I said other current thread on this topic, the monarch in a modern Westminster system is not an independent actor, but is best thought of as a sort of national notary. Her job is merely to certify that legislation was passed according to the proper procedures. She is not democratically elected, and is barred from acting publicly in any way to further a particular political agenda. Like the Supreme Court, her power to invalidate legislation passed by the elected branches of the government is very limited and must be based on constitutional principles. (Also like the Supreme Court, these limitations aren’t spelled out in any constitutional document, but literally everyone who isn’t crazy agrees that they exist and pretty much what they are.) Unlike the Supreme Court, she can only do this when the legislation is pending, through the withholding of Royal Assent. Also, unlike in the American system, the British constitution has no concept of checks and balances or of limited government. If a government tried to do something immediately following an election they lost, or a coalition was in the process of breaking apart and reforming, or there was a conspiracy revealed to abolish democracy in Britain by Nazis standing (American: running) for election as members of another party and then secretly passing legislation to establish the Fourth Reich, then the Queen might be expected to withhold support. But if a party stood for election and won a majority on a platform of abolishing the Westminster system and replacing it with a republican one, or a fascist one, or a Maoist-socialist one, the Queen would have no legal option but to give assent. (Though she does have the explicit authority to speak with the PM and warn him privately against his course of action.) If she didn’t, she would be no different than the court clerk in Kentucky opposing gay marriage: a (very glorified) civil servant with delusions of power and no choices but to accept the law or resign, and if she refused to do either, the government would simply find a way around her.
This thread has made for some great reading!
So if the Monarch doesn’t like a piece of legislation, how much power does she have with refusing to give Royal Assent? Since she risks a republican reaction to her opposition, how much power does she really have? I might imagine that it would be dependent upon public opinion of the Monarchy at that time.
And if that’s the case, I could see the Monarchy surviving the Charles III era being a difficult task.
Are you sure you’ve read the thread?
QEII’s opinion on any piece of legislation is immaterial.
Her government has passed the legislation, she or her heirs & successors will sign it.
To borrow the appropriate “Yes, Minister” quotation;
[QUOTE=Sir Humphrey Appleby:]
Bernard, I have served eleven governments in the past thirty years. If I had believed in all their policies, I would have been passionately committed to keeping out of the Common Market, and passionately committed to going into it. I would have been utterly convinced of the rightness of nationalising steel. And of denationalising it and renationalising it. On capital punishment, I’d have been a fervent retentionist and an ardent abolishionist. I would’ve been a Keynesian and a Friedmanite, a grammar school preserver and destroyer, a nationalisation freak and a privatisation maniac; but above all, I would have been a stark, staring, raving schizophrenic
[/QUOTE]
A bit of a derailment perhaps, but I honestly don’t understand where everyone gets this assumption that the Prince of Wales as King will be an interfering busybody. He’s really pretty unremarkable in his activities, and the late assumptions (principally by the constitutionally illiterate Grauniad) that he’s violating the constitution with his behaviour ignores the fact that the conventions surrounding the monarch have always been different ones from those surrounding the rest of the royal family, albeit linked.
Perhaps those conventions are changing and expanding to encompass every royal - it seems that way - but the Prince of Wales cannot be accused of violating constitution conventions that have not existed for most of his life.
Pretty simply, the moment he becomes King, the familiar expectations that currently bind the Queen will bind him. He’ll be a perfectly adequate monarch and the Crown is safe with him.
Because he’s been an interfering busybody. No matter how well he behaves as King, he’ll always have the history, and people will be suspicious. And if they’re not suspicious, those with an agenda will raise suspicions. As any marketer will tell you, ‘The perception is the reality.’
It will be far better for the throne to pass directly to William.
He hasn’t been, really. His predecessors as Heirs were as much or more interfering. But yes, you have a point with perception being the key here.
Eh, I think he’ll surprise everyone with how unremarkablly kingly he’ll be.
Camilla, however, will be all “Off with their heads!”
Perhaps oddly, she has turned out to be entirely the dutiful, unglamorous, two paces behind, don’t-frighten-the-horses consort Diana was praised for not being.
The emerald cap on the toothpaste tube of nationalism.
[Tom Robbins]
'Tis but a ruse. Her time, she bides.
Camilla won’t be a monarch, however. She would be Queen Consort.
Historically in the UK, certain court functions were handled by Parliament – that is, the house of lords handled appeals and acted in the role that the Supreme Court does in the United States (at least until recently, when the UK supreme Court was created as part of constitutional reforms). This is because courts (like Parliament itself) were originally part of functions performed by the King’s royal court.
The question of the courts is an important one. Yes they don’t overrule parliament’s laws but for a law to become a law the royal assent is required under the UK’s current pseudo-constitution. So would the court be compelled to follow a law that hadn’t really been passed in the first place?