Comment by AndrewDavis | Hacker News Reader

Comment by AndrewDavis | Hacker News Reader

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See Australia.

- 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)

The situation in Canada is the same, but there is one situation where the GG's power is significant, and does not trigger a constitutional crisis.

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.)

Because the Prime Minister asked her to. So was it really the whim of one unelected person or the whim of the democratically elected leader in an undemocratic spirit? Her refusing would have caused it's own issues because precedent said to follow the PM advice.

The PM that no longer had the confidence of parliament a month after the election of his minority party.

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.

It's actually really sane. Elected individuals are almost always corrupt... you really can't be elected anymore without owing lots of people favours.

An unelected, non-political individual who is above it all results in a more stable democracy.

Populist take aside, this is somewhat true. In Italy there has been talk of electing the president directly, but I think that would be a terrible choice. Currently, he is elected by parliament, and this (surprisingly) has worked mostly well. The president ends up being an older well respected politician who takes a neutral role. If they were elected by a public election, there's no way you could have a neutral figure.

> If they were elected by a public election, there's no way you could have a neutral figure.

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 don't necessarily agree with your conclusion. My conclusion is that culture is more important in democracy than written laws.

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.

> 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

> And while the US managed in the 20th century to avoid the instability which plagued Latin America, maybe that was just good luck

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.

I never claimed it was a 100% explanation. Italy and Germany had a parliamentary system, and ended up with Mussolini and Hitler - so a parliamentary system is no foolproof guarantee of avoiding bad outcomes.

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

The point of my post was suggesting that culture is more important than the official system of government.

>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.

This is exactly why so many bots online are absolutely hammering the British monarchy. If we were to remove the King, it would totally destabilise the country. It would make Brexit look like a garden party.

Anti monarchist sentiment is strong in UK surveys so the idea that it's fake/astroturfed online content seems ridiculous to me. Any evidence?

Top Google result: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2019/03/08/megbot-a...

It's useful for the russians to amplify any divide in a country, especially if they can poison the conversation about it. They will likely also amplify more rabidly pro-monarchy positions as well.

It is also useful for the establishment to be able to discredit anti-establishment viewpoints as Russian propaganda. The enemy who is trying to hurt you but doesn’t realise they are actually helping you instead

The Governor General can refuse Royal Assent without causing a crisis, as long as it's a decision taken "in council", which essentially means as advised by the Prime Minister.

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.

> 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.

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

The Federal bill I was most recently looking at didn't require a separate proclamation to enter into force - there were three commencement provisions, two based on the date of royal assent and one a fixed date: https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display....

That’s a tax law-tax law is a bit different. In tax law, it is considered important to have clear start dates decided by Parliament - because both taxpayers and the tax office need certainty, and the budget depends on revenue projections which depend on a clear start date for each tax law change. So yes, tax law is an area in which the government is most likely to advise the GG to not assent if serious technical drafting errors are only discovered after passage by Parliament.

In other areas of law, where certainty on start dates is less crucial, setting a start date by proclamation is much more common

Royal assent*

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