No, because Assange would not have followed the statutory procedure, and HM would be acting against the advice of her ministers.
You betcha!
Pass an Act of Parliament… but they wouldn’t even have to do that. The Home Secretary could simply spread the word to the rest of HMG that that particular passport was invalid. Assange would be arrested the moment he stepped outside the Ecuadorian embassy.
I suppose, sorta, but see answer 1.
Also no, for the reasons already stated.
I suspect the Queen would be forced to abdicate, or deposed by Act of Parliament a la King James II, if she insisted on abusing her powers in this or any way. There are plenty of other people in the line of succession to step up, should it come to that.
Take a look at the great political TV drama To Play The King for what would likely happen if a British monarch repeatedly acted against the wishes of the PM.
Re Assange: perhaps Her Maj could arrange for him to be issued the passport of a Queens Messenger? She probably can’t, but it would allow free passage if she could. A normal, or even diplomatic passport doesn’t guarantee that.
Not all royal commands are the same. Declaring war is a rather different matter than deciding what she wants for breakfast. The crucial difference lies in how those orders are issued.
Monarchs down the centuries have found it to their advantage to surround their most important decisions with the greatest formality. That certain types of commands involved greater formalities was intended to indicate that those commands were really important. The result is that there is a sliding scale of royal powers depending on how those powers are exercised. The formalities matter. That the Queen can do virtually anything via Acts of Parliament, quite a lot via orders of the Privy Council and certain important things via letters patent does not mean that a verbal order from her necessarily carries any weight at all.
Of course, there is a flipside to this. This is most obvious with regards Parliament. The authority of royal commands enacted by Acts of Parliament was a source of great power to most monarchs in the past, but this required Parliament’s cooperation and so entrenched Parliament’s political importance. What is less obvious but equally relevant is that the same applies to the role of government ministers. There is almost nothing of significance that the Queen orders that does not need the cooperation of at least one government minister. Even the simplest official orders signed by her usually require a countersignature by one of the secretaries of state - the issue isn’t that the order needs two signatures but that the secretary of state’s signature is needed to witness that the monarch’s signature is genuine. This gives ministers plenty of scope to resist. There were examples in past centuries, when monarchs did still try to control policy, of ministers refusing to countersign warrants or to affix seals. That the monarch ought to follow the advice of her ministers is mere convention. But it is a convention that carries weight mainly because ministers are so well placed to create a fuss.
Consider therefore the Assange passport scenario. It is not that the Foreign Secretary would ignore an order from the Queen that Assange be issued with a passport. Rather it is that such an order would be invalid unless endorsed by the Foreign Secretary (or one of his Cabinet colleagues). You can be damn sure that the first thing Passport Office officials would do if they received a handwritten note from the Queen ordering this would be to refer the matter upwards for clarification. Which prompts the observation that the Queen’s informal powers can be far greater than her formal powers. Her wish to grant a passport to Assange would easily be blocked. But if she was to go off-message while making a public speech to declare that Assange seems a nice guy and that the Swedes and the Americans are clearly out to get him, then the Government would have a real problem.
As noted above, passports fall under the authority of the Home Secretary, not the Foreign Secretary (unlike in the U.S., where they are the responsibility of the Secretary of State, the republic’s top diplomat).
This is something that’s irked me about British politics for a while. British politics are based around the people with de jure power (monarch, governor-general, etc.) always acting based on the advice of their advisors, which more or less means, “Don’t think for yourself, just do whatever they say whether you agree with it or not or even whether it makes sense or not.” One of the things I was taught as a small child was the lesson “If someone told you to jump off a bridge, would you?” The point was that throughout your life, people would give you “advice”, and you had to be smart enough to know how to pick and choose the valuable advice from the advice that is not so smart, goes against your morals, etc. But in the case of the monarch, the PM’s advice is not subject to rational thought and analysis - it’s the PM’s way or abdication.
Neither the Queen of the United Kingdom nor the Parliament of the United Kingdom could confer Canadian citizenship on anyone, as neither of them have any legislative authority over Canada.
Not could the Queen of Canada confer Canadian citizenship on anyone, as citizenship is defined solely by the Canadian Citizenship Act. The Queen’s royal prerogative does not allow her to change statute law.
Why does this irk you? It’s not the job of the Monarch to make policy decisions or act against the wishes of Parliament. When she’s given advice, it’s not “advice” in the same sense that you might advise your teenage son to wear a condom or to do well in school. It’s a thinly veiled instruction.
Think of it more like “When you live in my house you will x!” “As long as you are Queen of this country, you’ll do what we tell you! If you don’t like it, leave!”
If the Queen cannot be tried in her own courts, is she allowed to possess child porn or hard drugs like heroin. How would that be dealt with. Abdication? That would seem to be extreme.
She isn’t “allowed” to do these things, she just can’t be tried in court if she does them. The recourse, should a monarch act like a lunatic, is through Parliament.
Because the PM has a democratic mandate (more or less) while the monarch doesn’t.
In many ways, the monarch is really no different in substance from someone who is below the PM in the pecking order; the PM (or the relevant Secretary of State, or the Cabinet, or whoever) decide on a particular course of action; officials implement it or, if they find that unconscionable, they resign. They have no right to substitute their own judgment as to what the policy ought to be, and implement that; nor does the monarch.
For symbolic and ceremonial purposes, the monarch outranks the PM, so what the PM says to the monarch is characterised as “advice”, not instructions. But so far as the practical working of government is concerned, the monarch’s exalted position entitles her to be consulted by those who have a democratic mandate to govern, to advise them, to guide them, to warn them - but not to substitute her judgment for theirs. If she really cannot stomach their judgment, her choice is the same as any civil servant’s; she can swallow her scruples and do as advised, or she can quit.
And after she leaves do you prosecute. Put her in jail. I don’t think that King Charles would go along with that. Would that be enough to end the monarchy.
1 - Assuming she could find someone in the passport office (or some passport-printing division somewhere in the world) to issue a passport, it would be as meaningful as any other passport issued by the government.
2 - Depends. Constitutional crisis boils down to - “if your highness does not do as we suggest, we will resign and run on the platform that we will abolish this and possibly many other or all of your rights.” If the queen forces an issue (or parliament does) then they better be sure they’ll win an election on it. It’s basically a nuclear option either way.
3 - IIRC the passport office, at the instruction of the minister(s) can void any passport for any reason. I recall reading that passports are in fact the property of the government.
4 - So what? We’re already at a constitutional crisis at this point. See point #2 - it’s now a game of PR spin, not legalities. Who obeys whom? Who do you think will win?
5 - This goes back to point #2 again. She can order him to get a passport, she can lead a squad of Beefeaters into the passport office, break down the doors, try to figure out the passport-printing machine herself, etc.
Brings us to our final point. So what? A passport is not a magic wand that gets you through borders. Just because Assange arrives at the French coast or the Zurich airport waving his letter from Betty or a real passport, the authorities are under no obligation to honour it, let him pass unhindered, or even return his passport when he hands it over for them to peruse. (Downing Street might have asked them to retrieve it and send it back and forward Assange to the USA). A passport merely identifies you so that the local authorities can look you up in their files and decide if you are going to be allowed entry.
No. The whole thing is a giant balancing act. The monarch is widely loved and respected, to the point where the politician who treats her badly is risking his political career and by the time any politician evokes disapproval from the queen, he’s probably already ticked off a huge part of the voters too. I would say it’s more like a marriage… Both sides have to try to get along, or there’s no lovin’ happening. Neither side can have it all their own way.
This assumes that neither side is completely off their rocker. If the monarch were to adopt the attitude of the tea party over the shutdown (example, not political shot) and be so unwilling to compromise - then they have to recognize the politician has the last and best shot “I was chosen to lead by the people, not by a sperm race.”
The tea party at least had the argument that their constituency elected them. The queen has no such claim.
I am surprised that the debate has got this far without asking exactly what or who the Monarch is.
The Monarch is different from Mrs Betty Windsor as a human being. The Monarch is a role filled by her, but she is not the monarch as far as constitutional affairs and government go. She is only the monarch while acting within a protocol of rules, one of which is that although she has the right as above to question, advise, warn and listen to the Prime Minister, in reality the Prime Minister holds almost all the powers that are called the Royal Prerogative.
It is a principle of British Law that a person who is recognised as monarch is only so, so long as they have the support of Parliament- monarch, Lords and Commons.
British Law in reality gives all the Prerogative Powers to an Elected official- the Prime Minister. The Queen is window dressing and is valued for their advice alone.
You should recognise the situation as Americans as the Impeachment procedure for the President is based on that for a Monarch. In many ways, your President shares a very similar position to a dual office of Monarch and Prime Minister.
Well, at least one other member of the Royal family has been prosecuted - Princess Anne. Her dog bit someone, IIRC.
But there isn’t really a precedent in the modern era for “Queen caught in crack den with posse of hookers”, so it’s hard to say what would happen. There’s no constitutional reason why it should end the monarchy, but it wouldn’t do much good for it politically. My best guess is that it would not result in abolition if it was just one errant Queen provided she abdicated without protest. Maybe different if it were shown that the entire family were running a meth lab out of Windsor Castle.
I just wanted to thank this thread for giving me several delightful mental images (of the Queen storming the passport office with a squad of Beefeaters, then trying to figure out the passport printing machine; of the Queen in a crack den with posse of hookers), as well as introducing me to my ideal profession of Queen’s Messenger.
But can’t the Queen withhold royal assent from that new statute and it doesn’t become law?
Even though she can no longer dissolve Parliament, couldn’t she demand the PM’s resignation and appoint Charles Manson as the new PM, causing a no-confidence vote immediately?
