This principle is a result of the election of the Members of Parliament (MPs), by the electorate which gives them authority to represent and pass legislation on their behalf. Parliament being able to make laws on any matter can be traced back to the Bill of Rights 1689 where it was said that the monarch alone could not pass or repeal laws without Parliament's consent. Parliament is also free to modify its own makeup and authority. This is confirmed in the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949 which removed the veto powers of the House of Lords and the Life Peerages Act 1958 which apart from giving the Prime Minister flexibility to modify the composition of the House of Lords introduced female peers into the hereditary and male dominated second chamber. Therefore, parliament is still sovereign because it can make or unmake any law it wishes.
The most senior members are the prime minister, secretaries of state, Ministers of state and parliamentary under-secretaries. The Prime minister has the duty of being in charge and selects the other members of government. There are many important departments in central government and they all are crucial but are different roles in controlling the country. The departments include home office and department of health, but also involve sport and media and the department of culture. These departments are ruled by Secretaries state that has complete liability and are staffed by impartial civil servants who get their income from money provided by parliament.
A constitutional monarchy is when the monarch is the head of state and they can influence who is in parliament. By appointing Pitt the Younger as Prime Minister, King George III carried out patronage, patronage is granting favours or making appointments to parliament in return for political support. Without the support of the king, Pitt would not have become Prime Minister to begin with. Pitt also managed to remain as Prime Minister
As a country, Canada is not totally governed by a king or queen or president but rather the Executive governs it. The responsibility of the executive is policymaking as well as other political decisions that are needed in order to run and direct the country into the future. The three entities that make up the executive are: the crown or monarch, the prime minister and the Cabinet. In order to really undertand how the federal government is run, one must understand what each of these entities are and what part they play in the management of this country. Canada is a constitutional monarchy which means that it is a democracy that is headed by a King or Queen.
In most countries, the presidency is a constitutional office with a specific term and a specific procedure for electing the president. In the US, the office of the president is a constitutional office that is presided over by a president elect with a four years term. Section 1 of Article II of the US Constitution vests executive powers of the presidency to the elect president (U.S. Constitution Online, 2011). As per Section 2 of Article II of the US Constitution, the president is granted the powers such as the commander in chief of the armed forces. The president is also accorded the powers to seek opinions from officers in the service.
The government need to be able to rely on the MPs support for bills in parliament and regardless of the majority, there could more than 200 backbench MPs that need to be organised by a political party. The main sources of power that political parties have are through committees, debates, the voting system, the whipping system, and through scrutiny. Each of these plays a huge role in enabling political parties to exercise their power in parliament. The most evident source of power that political parties have in parliament is through the whipping system. Each party has a chief whip, a deputy chief whip and a number of junior whips.
Parliament may face difficulties in controlling executive power as the government usually has an overall majority. This is especially the case when there has been a creation of a large majority after elections such as 1997 and 2001 with Labour majorities of 179 and 167 respectively. Majorities of 66 in 2005 and 83 with the coalition in 2010 have also been recorded. This allows the government to claim a mandate from the people for its policies when it is elected to power. Therefore the parliament lacks the legitimate right to ignore the mandate and tends to accept the government’s right to govern.
How democratic is the UK? To evaluate how democratic the UK is we must first understand what democracy is and recognize its many types. The most widely accepted definition of democracy is that created by former president of the united states Abraham Lincoln who said that democracy is 'government of the people, by the people and for the people'. There are then also the differing types of democracy, four of which are: parliamentary democracy, liberal democracy, direct democracy and representative democracy. At a glance it is obvious that a major part of UK democracy is parliamentary democracy as this is our chosen form of government, having the houses of parliament which consist of the house of commons and the house of lords.
2. The United Kingdom has a legislative and executive branch but both are automatically headed by the same political party, since the prime minister is chosen by members of the majority party in Parliament. 3. President can make executive agreements (a formal agreement between the U.S. president and the leaders of other nations that does not
The bureaucratic courts of Chancery and the Exchequer What were income and expenditure managed by? Were controlled from within the king's household, under the care of the Privy Chamber What was the Secretary? The king could delegate whatever tasks he chose and by the 1530's the secretary's duties often covered matters of state as well as the Kings personal affairs What did the King exercise power over and why? As the source of patronage he exercised supremacy over all 3 of the