The King does not personally own the swans, but rather the institution that is The Crown. The King, cannot for example, build and sell a private mansion on Crown land. Presumably he cannot sell swans either. Or at least that is my interpretation.
You are ignoring one of the important unwritten rules of the British system – there's a lot of things which the Monarch "voluntarily" agrees to which aren't really voluntary. If a Monarch started refusing, it would trigger a constitutional crisis, the likely outcome of which would be that the law would be changed to make it no longer "voluntary". King Charles III has immense powers on paper, but if he ever tried to actually wield them – with the possible exception of highly unusual circumstances, such as a constitutional crisis not of his own making – he would soon find himself deprived of them.
It reminds me of a conversation a friend of mine once had with an emergency room doctor whilst in the midst of a mental health episode – Patient: "Am I free to leave?" Doctor: "Well, I haven't sectioned you, so right now you are legally free to leave – but if you try to leave, I will section you, and then you won't be legally free to leave". That may seem like a bizarre comparison, but I think in many ways it is an accurate one.
- The Govenor General is appointed by the Monarch as their representative. The government recommends a candidate. There is nothing (as far as I'm aware) to force the monarch to appoint the individual versus anyone they want. This would be a constitutional crisis.
- The Govenor General has kinds the same powers as the monarch. Legislation requires "royal ascent l" to become law (similar concept to the US president signing bills passed by congress). The Govenor could reject the bill, but that'd trigger a constitutional crisis.
- The Govenor General holds similar powers to the executive of the US (using them as an example because if you are on an England speaking site you probably have some familiarity of the US system via media). But based on recommendations from the Prime Minister defers these powers to different ministers. Commonly referred to as a Portfolio. Eg how we a minister for defence, immigration etc etc. Failure to follow government recommendations would trigger a constitutional crisis.
- The Govenor general can sack government and trigger an election. The closest Australia has been to constitutional crisis was the time this power was exercised with the sacking of Gough Whitlam.
(note this is all based on my memory and understanding from classes in high school long ago)
Determining whether or not a minority government is dissolved, and an election is held, or if a ruling coalition can be allowed to form.
In 2008, right after the election the GG did the ruling minority of Tories a pretty big favor by refusing to accept a non-confidence vote by a majority coalition, and instead, proroguing parliament for the benefit of the ruling minority party...
Absolutely insane. (That this question is left to the whim of one unelected person.)
It's reasonable for the PM to ask for such a self-serving thing, it's not for that ask to have been acquiesced to.
There were three options (that I can think of) for dealing with that situation:
1. Allow the coalition to form government.
2. Hold another election, a month after the previous one.
3. ...Suspend parliament for a few months, so that the coalition can't hold a vote to push the minority government out!
#2 is pretty nuts, but kind of justifiable, but #3 was absolutely nuts. (And had the bonus points of threatening that a non-confidence election half-a-year after the previous one is 'okay', despite Parliament being entirely non-functional for most of that intervening time.)
That there aren't clear rules about this, or that a minority PM can prevent a majority coalition from ousting him is the maddening part.
An unelected, non-political individual who is above it all results in a more stable democracy.
Ireland proves that isn’t true.
The Irish system works by allowing the public to choose the President, but having tough nominating criteria. Anyone overly political or controversial is not going to get through the nominating process, and so won’t be able to run. The nominating process produces a shortlist of 2-6 respected figures, and the public gets to choose which one they respect the most. If Italy adopted the same system as Ireland, including the same tough nomination requirements, there is no reason why Italy couldn’t get the same outcome.
I think this does need to be considered more in nation building though. The focus in Afghanistan and Iraq was more on writing a constitution.
Unfortunately the British system is seen more of a rickety accretion rather than something to aim for.
If you are looking for a constitutional system to emulate, I think Germany would be a good choice - a federal parliamentary republic with a written constitution. I don’t think anyone should slavishly copy every minor detail of the German system, but at a big picture level I can’t think of anyone who does it better
The UK is not a good model - no written constitution; a unitary state (even if devolved) rather than federalism (national government has unlimited powers to interfere in regional governments, which takes away an important check on that national government’s powers). Constitutional monarchy may still work for some countries, but trying to introduce a monarchy into a country which doesn’t already have one is a non-starter in today’s world.
The US is a federal republic with a written constitution, so in those respects is a better model for emulation than the UK. But the presidential model is inferior to the parliamentary model-many political scientists believe it has been the cause of much of Latin America’s political instability. Centralising so much executive power in a single person encourages the development of strongmen with personality cults (caudillos), such as Peron or Trump. And while the US managed in the 20th century to avoid the instability which plagued Latin America, maybe that was just good luck, and maybe the events of the last few years (with caudillo Trump) are a sign that its luck is finally running out
Ok, my degree is in political science and I, too, can go on and on about the significant impacts of political structure but I simply can’t imagine blaming Latin America’s 20th Century instability on local presidential systems and then topping it off by suggesting that maybe the US was just lucky it, with a presidential system, avoided the same fate.
At some point, you have to consider the international/geopolitical context and not assume everything is explained by domestic constitutional structure.
But the finding that parliamentary systems produce superior outcomes has good empirical support in the literature. See for example https://www.bu.edu/sthacker/files/2012/01/Are-Parliamentary-... https://theconversation.com/parliamentary-systems-do-better-...
I would never claim that 100% of the problems faced by either the US or Latin America are due to a presidential system. My claim is merely that it hasn’t helped them, and that while a parliamentary system is no panacea, it likely would have avoided or lessened some of them
>My conclusion is that culture is more important in democracy than written laws
Britain and it's ex dependencies may not have model constitutions or any constitutions but it still somehow works.
Why would the PM advise the GG to withhold Royal Assent? It's rare, but it's happened when technical problems were found in legislation after it had been passed by Parliament but before going to the GG, so giving time to pass amended legislation. It could also happen if a PM governing in minority faced a parliament passing legislation they strongly disagreed with.
At least in Australia (don’t know how they do things in Canada), it is standard practice nowadays to put a clause in all Acts saying the Act enters into force on a date to be proclaimed by the GG. So, in the event that an Act is found to be unworkable after passage by Parliament, it isn’t necessary for the GG to refuse/withhold/reserve assent. Instead, the GG assents to it, and it goes on the statute book. But the ministers never advise the GG to issue a proclamation setting an entry into force date, so it never enters into force - like if you commit code guarded by a feature flag, release that code to production, but then decide to never turn the feature flag on so it never actually runs. Parliament can then pass an amending Act fixing the flaws, and the GG can proclaim an entry into force date after assenting to the amending Act.
It has happened before that Parliament passes some controversial Act, GG assents to it, Cabinet decides to hold off entry into force pending some review, Cabinet decides to drop the whole idea, Parliament passes a repeal Act, GG assents to that, Act was enacted then repealed without ever entering into force-like merging a PR to remove code for a feature for which the feature flag was never enabled in production.
An entry-into-force proclamation isn’t quite like a feature flag though, in that you can choose when and if to turn it on, but once you turn it on there is no way to turn it back off. It can however be selective - you can make different sections of the Act enter into force at different times, and some sections may never be brought into force at all
In other areas of law, where certainty on start dates is less crucial, setting a start date by proclamation is much more common
If he starts to take a direct political stance on things they would remove his powers. The constitution can be changed by a 2/3rd majority in parliament, a king that starts to "use" his powers would be opposed by far more than 2/3rd of parliament regardless of their political affiliations.
Having spent more time thinking about political systems than I should, I'd say that this arrangement probably isn't a unique to the Brits (or their past colonies), but rather a universal political fact.
In general, words aren't worth the paper they're written on, unless they conform with the political reality. There's no monarch in the world that could actually exercise their powers on paper unless they also have the political clout to back them up.
The uniqueness of the British system is how weak the monarchy has gotten over the years, and how acutely aware they are about the situation. England's monarchy comes from a really long line of succession, due to the relative ease of defending an island from invaders. Monarchs that rule by right of conquest are generally strong and authoritative, their heirs becoming less so for each succession. (Japan shares this trait and hence the political system is somewhat similar)
And then, the near-death experience during the 1600s made the British monarchy even weaker, and more conscious about the dangers of angering the common mob. And so they invented the idea of constitutional monarchy, that is somehow "just like" the other democratic republics, except without the regicide part :)
Before this democracy thing became popular, it used to be cool for monarchs to proclaim to have more power than they actually had in political reality. After revolutions and regicides became a thing in Europe, they started to do the opposite and claimed to have less power than they had on paper.
But what I'm trying to say is, many monarchs (whether British or not) historically had little real power anyways, and would have most likely would have triggered constitutional crises if they disagreed with their ministers (or the powerful elites).
I think the re-imaging of the British monarchy as mentioned above is truly ingenious, and while I took my sweet time deconstructing it, I still think it's an amazing narrative. I'd classify it as "anti-republicanism propaganda", but it's brilliant nonetheless.
Note: used to be a British subject before 1997. Hah.
If he had sufficient popular support from the armed forces and a enough of the general public he might manage it.
The likely outcome though would be a considerable loss of support.
and by that immediately end the monarchy itself. The UK is funny like that. The king signs all the laws and could refuse in theory, but if he does he wouldn't be king anymore.
It’s how laws that exempted the Monarch from race discrimination laws, why leaseholders in the Duchy of Cornwall can’t buy their freeholds etc.
Of course, that argument didn't really work fantastically with Charles I.
Well, of course he can't — if you own something by definition, then if you sell it, you still own it; so you can't really sell it (without that being a con), can you? ;)
Perhaps of some interest:
> The King's Two Bodies (subtitled, A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology) is a 1957 historical book by Ernst Kantorowicz. It concerns medieval political theology and the distinctions separating the "body natural" (a monarch's corporeal being) and the "body politic".[1]
In other words, Crown property has always been the King’s, however, exceptionally he is allowed a second personhood so that he can buy, sell and (importantly) bequeath property like a normal person can.
Since then quiet a couple things have changed, i recommend checking out some 19th/20th century history