Does that ever actually happen, though? It’s my understanding that royal assent hasn’t been denied in hundreds of years, and the whole “His/Her Majesty acts on the advice of his/her ministers” means that the monarch’s literal job is to sign what the government tells them to sign.
Has there ever been a situation in recent memory where the government advised the Queen not to sign a bill, or she signed/didn’t sign against the government’s wishes?
Isn’t that the model of a democracy though? The people, through the democratically-elected Parliament and Senate or Lords (the latter are perhaps democratically-elected, or not, depending on realm), want something done, so the monarch does it for them.
In other words, the monarch does what the people want, not what she feels is best at any given time. Her role in the process of lawmaking is set by the various realms’ constitutions; she cannot deviate from those. If she was to deviate from constitutional norms, she’d probably be turfed pretty quick. (Of course, then, we’d have to deal with “what do we replace her with?” But that’s another thread for another time.)
We’ve heard time and time again from Americans on this and other fora, who think the job of Head of State and Head of Government are combined in one office, as their President is. Not true in Commonwealth realms, where the jobs of Head of State and Head of Government are separate and distinct. The Head of State takes the advice of a democratically-elected House, and a however-appointed Senate, and does what the people want.
Well if the first time the Queen’s disapproval of something is brought up is when its presented to her for Assent, then somebody done fucked up good. :eek:
We are not talking about withholding Assent to Acts of Parliament, which has not happened since 1708, though happened routinely in colonies (although every Monarch since has had a UK Bill which they have considered withholding Assent from; typically what happens is that Bill is dropped or changes made or most often the Monarch acquieses, discussions take place in private and the public usually finds out long after said monarch is dead).
We are talking about exercises of the Royal Prerogative. This fairly broad power can only be exercised by the monarch. In practice most of it (except some bit directly relating to the functions of the Crown) is done under the advise of ministers. However, unlike disagreements over Government policy or Bills which are extraordinary situations, disagreements over these happen fairly regularly. Typically they are
i) The Queen (or more accurately her advisors) don’t feel she has the power to do what the Government is asking her to do.
ii) The Palace feels that the matter would better better handled by actual legislation.
Incidentally, her Red Box does not just include stuff for her to sign. It includes drafts of policies, proposals etc so problems that I have identified are dealt with earlier.
I’ve made similar comments myself about the fundamental role of the monarchy in our constitutional monarchy – the business of Royal Assent, the granting of authority to form a government, the opening and dissolution of Parliament, etc. And yet, unless I’m missing something obvious, I wonder whether getting rid of the monarchy would really need to necessitate all that major a structural change, although clearly the Constitution would need to be amended. Consider this scenario:
In the present system, the Governor General is nominally appointed by the Queen on the advice of the prime minister (with a corresponding system for the Lieutenant Governors of the provinces), but the Queen has no real say in the matter so effectively it’s a government appointment. There would seem to be no real reason it couldn’t continue in the same fashion with all ties to the monarchy severed. Some might prefer that the GG be elected by popular vote, but that’s still not a real structural change if the powers and functions don’t change.
Basically we already have a system of government in which a sort of monarchistic oversight is enshrined in the Governor General with no reliance on any actual kings, queens, royal families and palaces, and ISTM that this could continue even if we dumped any formal connection to the British monarchy. A good example of such a system is Quebec, which functions as a constitutional monarchy despite having practically an allergic aversion to the British royalty. Quebec has in fact taken things one step further, abolishing the traditional Throne Speech by the Lieutenant Governor ostensibly on behalf of the Queen, and substituting instead an Opening Speech by the premier. That’s a good example of what is really only a tweak that preserves the elements of the same system but has no monarchistic associations.
My theory is that she’s planning to outlive Charles.
+1
In fact, since that’s such a bloody good answer +2
That’s something I hadn’t been familiar with, thanks. What would be an example of a case where the government advised the Queen to exercise her royal prerogative that she disagreed with?
The Queen isn’t subject to British freedom of information laws, so it’s not something that would necessarily be known.
Edit: Just thought of something. She objected, in the 1950s, to Canada accrediting an ambassador to the “President of Ireland,” and Canada yielded to her concerns the first time.
A simple “Are you quite sure?” can be pretty influential, more so than “Shan’t! Won’t!”. Of course, that question has already been answered when legislation comes up for assent, because it will have been deliberated in Parliament.
But when it comes to diplomatic manoeuvres or suggestions for involving the royals in some new initiative, these things are usually handled as between the officials in the Palace and No. 10, and tend to go along the lines of “Can we be reassure HM that all angles have been considered, for instance, might there be an issue with XYZ that would involve HM in some controversy?”
There is one recorded instance in the UK, where Harold Wilson suggested it might sway opinion in the then Southern Rhodesia away from the white minority’s declaration of independence if the Queen were to make an official visit there. Her private secretary wrote to his to say (I paraphrase) that of course she would be available to undertake a tour if the PM could confirm in writing that that was his advice and that he was confident it would command the support of parliament. And that was the end of that idea.
It would be a structural change. If someone is elected by the people, he has a political legitimacy. The powers of the governor general might be purely theoritical now, but if he was elected, you couldn’t expect him to abstain forever from exercising them out of respect for tradition. Sooner or later, he would. Let’s assume for instance that the newly elected GG is an overt political ennemy of the current Prime Minister policies. Not only he could, but one could even say he should (since the people elected him knowing he opposed these policies, and presumably expecting he would do something about it) refuse to sign bills presented by the government.
Note that in parliamentary republics, the President is never (AFAIK) elected by popular vote. Presumably precisely for this reason. You can’t have someone put in power by the people and then argue that he should do nothing and stay out of politics. And even in republics where the elected president has actual powers, his right to refuse to sign bills is either non-existent (like in France) or limited (like in the USA). You can’t rely on the elected president playing nice and following some tradition of always signing bills if he’s backed by a popular vote and has the “theoretical” power to refuse to sign them. It would inevitably become an exercised veto power.
Even if you spelled out precisely in the constitution that your elected head of state has no power at all (like, say, the emperor of Japan), people would wonder why they’re wasting time electing him and he would use his position as a pulpit and to exert influence on political matters.
Electing your head of state would inevitably change structurally your parliamentary system into something else.
I agree. Good summary.
A GovGen elected by national popular vote would have more political legitimacy than the PM, and if the GovGen continues to have all the powers of the monarch, would have greater express constitutional status and powers than the PM, who has none.
Excellent comments from the last couple dozen posts. It’s so refreshing to talk about governance as a business process to be done well, rather than politics as simply an amoral schoolyard fight to be won by any means fair or foul.
Having said all that, ref this pithy comment:
There can be some political advantage to doing the easy hypothetical first.
Doing the hard fundamentals first is like wading into cold water. Each successive step is less pleasant than the last and there’s no payoff until the end. Which means there are lots of opportunities to chicken out or rationalize away the impetus to continue.
Doing the easy hypothetical first is like jumping off the pier into cold water. Once you’re wet you’ve got to deal with it; all of it. No turning back.
IF the prize is large enough, there can be legit value in this approach. It short-circuits the perennial political problem of “*There *is better than here. But you can’t get there from here.”
OTOH there is a real risk of doing a lot of damage along the way as you splutter about trying to ad lib the solution while freezing in the water. So the prize better be worth it.
Arguably both Brexit and Trump are examples of the public buying an easy hypothetical that’ll probably turn out not to be worth the disruption.
Except as a matter of practical politics, there is no way to do the easy thing first in this case.
We can’t pass a constitutional amendment that just abolishes the monarchy (which also eliminates the ability of the GovGen to exercise her powers), then look around and say, “oh, by the way, now that the Queen is gone, who’s our head of state who appoints the Prime Minister and dissolves Parliament as needed?”
My take is that it’s misleading to start with the abolition question because it makes people think that this is a simple matter.
The question from AK84, which I responded to, highlights this point: most Québécois would probably love to abolish the monarchy, but that’s not the point. The real issue is the replacement.
Again, the Australian example shows how important it is to consider the hard question. The polls apparently showed a majority of Australians favoured abolishing the monarchy and becoming a republic.
But, the inability to come up with a republican model that had broad public support means that Australia is still a monarchy, 17 years on.
The hard question has to be dealt with before abolition can occur.
Bit of a side-track, but gives me a chance to tell an anecdote:
At one point during his long relationship with Mrs Jordan, who was an actress, Prince William was in financial straits and hinted to her in a letter that he might have to reduce her allowance.
She sent back a playbill from her theatre, with the words at the bottom circled: “No refunds after rise of curtain.”
Getting back to wolfpup’s suggestion about replacing the Queen by government appointment of the GovGen: I agree that would be the least disruptive option. Even so, it would likely raise three significant questions:
Would the appointment continue to be made by executive appointment alone, which is currently the case? I.e., by the PM and Cabinet, behind closed doors, without any public input? Personally, I think that would be difficult to implement in today’s political climate of transparency and accountability. But if not by executive appointment, how? By resolutions of the Commons? By the Commons and Senate together? Would there be provincial input? I don’t see obvious universally acceptable answers to those questions, which we could predict with confidence would get unanimous consent.
The new approach would also need at least one new power, in addition to appointment: a formal mechanism for removal of the GovGen in case of age, infirmity or misconduct. The Constitution is currently silent on that point. Would it be an executive power? Or vested in the same body or bodies which did the appointment? Again, I don’t see a clear answer here.
And, related to that point, should the GovGen under the new system have a guaranteed tenure of office, to establish a degree of independence from the PM and Cabinet?
Finally, not a specific question, but a comment: once you open the issue for discussion, would it really be the case, politically, that people would be willing to accept this approach, of just substituting the GovGen Mark II for the Queen? I think there would be some who reject that limited change, and argue for more substantial changes. It would just take one province to assert that it should have a role in the appointment of the GovGen (“Bonjour, Québec!”) to prevent any change.
Again, the Australian example is relevant: as I understand it, one of the reasons the referendum failed to pass was that it was relatively minimalist in its approach, which failed to win support from some of the republicans who wanted more radical change. They voted against the proposal, even though it would have made Australia a republic and abolished the monarchy, because it didn’t go far enough to meet their republican goals. (And, I’m certainly open to correction on this point from our Aussie Dopers. Comments welcome!)
Yes, I know I said I’d stop chattering about the monarchy in Canada, but you guys keep pulling me back in! 
I do wonder about Republicanism in Canada and Australia, why bother. It’s not like the Monarchy or the UK Government has any real or theoretical power to do anything against the wishes of the elected government of the Country. Seems to me to be a big plle of nothing.
I agree. We have more important issues to work on, like the shameful state of many of our First Nations communities; health care; economic development; environmental issues; the fisheries … the list goes on.
Why spend precious political time and capital on something that is working and does not in any way hinder the democratic ability of people to have the government they want?
There’s no real “hatred” against the Royals; I think because, unlike the British, Canadians aren’t involved with every juicy scandal/affair of these rich, self-important, foreigners (we have Hollywood Celebs to scratch that itch). A great many of us even enjoy these historic ties and the Royals summertime visits, but you have to admit… Our whole political system is quite absurd.
Either way. Canada should naturally continue to assert it’s sovereignty from these historic ties, but not at risk of our current political stability (stalemate?).
My understanding is that even short of a regency, the Queen could delegate certain legal powers to her Counsellors of State. The legal basis for this already exists (it can be found here), even though it would require letters patent of the Queen to activate such a delegation (but that can be done in a jiffy).