Hacker News Reader

Comment by astrange | Hacker News Reader

Other countries have constitutional monarchies. The UK still has an absolute monarchy, they just agree not to use any of the powers. They need a real constitution first to have a constitutional monarchy. (Instead they pretend a bunch of random historical documents are a constitution. At least one of them is a letter to the editor of a newspaper written under a pseudonym.)

Japan's monarchy was a Meiji invention; he had no power before that and has no power now. He's more like the opposite, a prisoner we specifically wrote into the constitution to have no human rights.

View on HN

The UK and other Commonwealth countries are constitutional monarchies. You don't need a piece of paper called the "constitution" to be one or have a constitution. The UK essentially invented the modern constitutional monarchy where the monarch essentially is just a ceremonial figurehead. Prior to the end of WWII the Emperor of Japan had far more personal power under the Meiji constitution than the British monarch of the same time or today.

Towing and asserting the official line doesn't make it true.

The British monarch has all those powers on paper. They never agreed to relinquish them. Then, random commoners (with no authority) keep asserting that the monarch has no powers, or no intention to use/abuse those powers. Nobody seems to agree which ones are not supposed to be used ever, which ones are supposed to be used sparingly, and which ones are OK to use recreationally. Then, occasionally somebody discovers some secret privilege the monarch has, and the people have to decide on the spot whether that's OK or not.

Compared with the actual constitutional monarchy, where there are actual rules spelled out clearly. The Brits are masters of wordplay, but "unwritten constitution" is really unironically "trust us, we're making this up as we go along".

> UK still has an absolute monarchy, they just agree not to use any of the powers

This is true to the extent that North Korea is a republic.

> The UK still has an absolute monarchy

Hey, could you do us all a favour and update Wikipedia[0] to reflect your research on this matter? Sadly it still lists the government as a unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom

British people will also tell you they have good food, a working healthcare system, and that people care about their monarchy, but you don't have to listen to them about any of it. We're just humoring them.

To have a constitutional government, you should first have a constitution.

> you should first have a constitution

Sure they do. The constitution doesen't have to be a single document.

Which is not necessarily a bad thing. The American constitution has basically become immutable at this point while meaningful reform is still possible in Britain.

I'd say Canada has a better system; there's at least a parliamentary act passed saying what's in the constitution, and the people who wrote it are still around to explain themselves. (Australia loses points because they forgot to have a bill of rights.)

The US changes its constitution by just having the Supreme Court make things up. As you can see from the Lochner era, this has rarely worked well.

There are uncodefied parts of the Canadian constitution too. The codefied parts begin with a sentence that's essentially "copy/paste the UK constitution here". The Supreme Court of Canada has also said they can add unwritten parts of the constitution and the written parts aren't exhaustive.

I always been told they do, it's just not written down

As I said, some of it is "officially" written down in an unsigned newspaper letter to the editor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascelles_Principles

Notably the article doesn't even know if the letter is still the law or not.

> Following passage of the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022, which repealed the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, these principles are thought to have been revived.

> To have a constitutional government, you should first have a constitution.

Here’s another page that could probably use the fruits of your research:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_K...

Do you believe this one too?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_People's_R...

Not to claim it's the same situation, but there's a difference between things that are officially true and things you should actually respect. You shouldn't respect most of the US judicial system either.

> but there's a difference between things that are officially true and things you should actually respect

Could you relate that back to your initial claim that "the UK still has an absolute monarchy", which appears to be both officially untrue and untrue in practice?

Well, I'd respect it more if the monarch had a few less of these powers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_prerogative_in_the_Unite...

Especially

https://ukconstitutionallaw.org/2013/01/26/tom-adams-royal-c... + https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/08/royals-vette...

They don't even make the monarch get a driver's licence or pay taxes because laws don't apply to them. (Instead they voluntarily pay taxes and don't speed.)

Maybe they could try writing some of that down in a constitution.

Britain does have a constitution

Good thing that Britain has a constitution then.

One that was made up as those in power went along and has never really been codified

Britain has great food, just look for a Pakistani place ...

> British people will also tell you they have good food

If you've ever eaten Indian curry (of the tikka masala variety in particular), chances are, its recipe was British in origin.

While traditional British food might not appear particularly appealing to the discerning palate, Great Britain is home to many a culinary innovation.

A written constitution isn’t even worth the paper it’s written on unless the people and institutions of the country are in the habit of actually following it. Britain follows their unwritten constitution, established through centuries of tradition, better than many countries follow their written constitutions.

> Japan's monarchy was a Meiji invention; he had no power before that and has no power now. He's more like the opposite, a prisoner we specifically wrote into the constitution to have no human rights.

Japanese emperors have (had) lots of indirect power (akin to Charles lobbying). E.g. during WW2 Hirohito participated in some very high level decision making (and should have been hanged for it).

Yes, that's post-Meiji and before we rewrote their constitution. Before Meiji westernization it was on and off and he was a bit more like the chief priest than a ruler.

Well unlike in some other places the English monarchy hasn't generally been absolute since the high middle ages. The struggle between parliamentarism and the crown last for 400-500 years. So yeah there is no single all encompassing document because there was no single revolutionary event which would have necessitated it.

Britain always led the fight against absolutism in Europe (well more or less anyway..) so most of these constitutions that were designed to curtail the power of the monarch during the revolutions of the 1800s merely brought other countries inline with where Britain already was.

US is in a similar state.It was one of the first "democratic" states so its system if full of out of date anachronisms like the electoral college, the second amendment and near absolute freedom of speech (well yeah some are bad and some are good..).

The letter - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascelles_Principles

It is true that there is a convention not to actually exercise many powers as a King, leaving them to the government. But it wouldn't be an absolute monarchy anyway, in fact it's one of the first examples where the monarch could not do as he wished, and had to call Parliament. So it's a parliamentary monarchy.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com