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Comment by ComradePhil | Hacker News Reader

Here's why this is complete and absolute nonsense fabricated for political reasons. The only people who think Scandinavian countries are "democracies" are those who haven't read their constitutions... and that includes most of their natives.

* Their monarchs have absolute power, the monarchs give right to the parliament to exist for example

* The monarch can decide who gets to run for elections

* The monarch can veto against any legal decision

All of them do have elections and they do appear to have some impact on policies... but the supreme power is hidden and made to look ceremonial to the masses when it is totally not the case.

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So, can you point to any case where this power has actually been used against the will of e.g. the parlament or the courts in the last 60 years? Don't misunderstand me, I am a republican, so against the monarchy, and it is clearly a relic from the past. But that is also all it is, in practice the norwegian king weilds political power until the moment he tries to use it, then its gone. Queen Elizabeth is the Head of state of Canada, is Canada also not a democracy?

But have these supposed monarchs exercised this power at all in recent history, and are they even capable of exercising it? I'm guessing no, but even if they were capable of coming out of the shadows and interfering, this is basically true of any supposed democracy. Every country out there is run by the mafia that won, and they will get what they want if the system fails them.

Uhm, if I remember correctly the UK removed an elected prime minister of Australia (on basis that he was a leftie) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitution...

Sure but we are talking about Scandinavia.

Regarding the UK, is 1975 the last instance of such a thing? That's quite a while ago.

Sorry for my lack of knowledge but from your link it looks like the Governor General John Kerr was a piece of shit (or an idiot at best).

The Wikipedia link makes no mention that I could find of the Buckingham Palace's direct involvement in the constitutional crisis in Australia. What am I missing?

Exactly what happened is somewhat tied up with Australia becoming a republic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republicanism_in_Australia). The Dismissal is still somewhat of a sore point for the Labor Party, and discussions of it and its implications to now are common (see https://search-beta.abc.net.au/index.html?siteTitle=news#/?q..., which I'm pretty sure is missing out 90% of the ABC content on the topic, there was a bunch of old archives released last year (2021) which started up the discussions again).

> Uhm, if I remember correctly the UK removed an elected prime minister of Australia

The UK did not, the Governor-General of Australia did. (The Governor-General is the practical head of state, though the Queen of Australia is the formal head of state; removal of a government in response to loss of supply, which had occurred in Australia in 1975, is not irregular in Westminster-style systems whether the head of state of is a monarch acting directly, a monarch acting through an agent like the GG, or elected.)

The UK (both the government and the monarch as monarch of the UK) hadn't had authority (even ceremonial) over Australia for around 4 decades in 1975.

That's a wildly innacurate interpretation.

The Australian Govenor-General is an Australian citizen chosen by the Australian Australian prime minister, and acts only on the advice if the prime minister or other ministers, the monarchs role is purely ceremonial.

This is not true at all.

The constitutional powers of the monarchs in Scandinavian countries do not at all reflect reality. The monarchs have no power to influence politics or elections outside of public or international relations.

I can't say for the other Nordic countries, but this statement is utterly wrong as far as Sweden is concerned.

The Swedish monarch has no power at all in the Swedish Grundlag (constitution). He is the titular head of state, holds a few honorary military titles and opens the government every year.

It's a marketing function, nothing more. He has no power over the election process, legal system etc.

I can write on a piece of paper, right now, that I have supreme power over the state. That doesn't actually make it so.

Most of the powers the monarchs in Scandinavia supposedly have can't actually be enforced in reality, so they really don't have as much power as you seem to think.

On the opposite end, is North Korea a democracy just because it says so in their constitution?

>but the supreme power is hidden and made to look ceremonial to the masses when it is totally not the case.

no, the supreme power has moved from the time of writing and the codification of this change has not been completed. Many places in the world have laws that do not reflect actual practice.

The Swedish monarchy has only ceremonial power. There is as far as i know nothing in the Swedish constitution that gives the monarchy any real power.

Non of your examples above exist in the Swedish constitution.

In Sweden, as head of state, the King is Sweden’s foremost unifying symbol. According to the 1974 constitution, the monarch has no political affinity and no formal powers. The King’s duties are mainly of a ceremonial and representative nature.

You have provided no reference to your claim whatsoever, if you are arguing this point, please provide what you are referring to specifically.

Furthermore, Finland does not have a monarch at all (all though you might argue that they are not formally part of Scandinavia, but that's up for debate)

I mean, just because these clauses exist don't mean they are put into practice. That said, I think all countries could do with a revision of their constitution - the US first and foremost; while it was one of the first countries with a progressive constitution at the time, it hasn't aged well to the point where the US is now considered a backtracking democracy.

I feel like this could technically apply to the USA as well. It's more of an oligarchy with the appearance of democracy. It's really weird looking at the connections between presidents, etc.

How often do those monarchs make use of that power and to what extend? Does it have negative impact on normal people?

Last time in Denmark was in 1920 [1]. It almost abolished the monarchy at the time. Since then no other monarch have dared interfere with politics.

Today all political interactions are purely ceremonial. The monarchy is still part of the power elite, and of ceremonial importance in domestic and international relations, but they have no direct power over political decisions or elections.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_X_of_Denmark#Easter_...

I can think of a few recent examples.

The 1975 Australian constitutional crisis, where the Governor General (granted power by the Queen) dismissed the Prime Minister.

In 2019, when the British PM suspended Parliament - a provision that would not exist without a Monarchy, as it was technically done by the Queen on the PM s advice. This was later ruled illegal but there was no way to right the wrong.

Recently, Queen's Consent was exposed as a secret process where laws are changed in secret before coming to Parliament to gain the Queen's approval. One example being that the Queen can hire without complying with laws against race discrimination. She also has exceptions from environmental and COVID legislation.

Checking Wikipedia, it looks like Queens Consent was withheld in 1990 preventing debate of reforming the House of Lords. Probably the world's least democratic legislative chamber of any democracy.

The 1975 and 2019 cases are dubious, since they are the personal actions of elected individuals (directly or indirectly). The governor general is elected at the advice of ministers and is not a hereditary post.

Queen's Consent is a better argument, although worth noting that it's more like "I don't have to follow your laws" rather than "I get to change your laws".

Not sure what you're smoking, but I challenge you to find _one_ instance of any of the things you mentioned happening in modern time.

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