2. Constitutional Organisations, Institutions, and Roles

2021 ◽  
pp. 17-48
Author(s):  
Lisa Webley ◽  
Harriet Samuels
Keyword(s):  
Armed Forces ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
The Political ◽  
Welfare Benefits ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Head Of State ◽  
Human Rights Act ◽  
Human Rights Act 1998 ◽  
The Government ◽  
Executive Agencies

Titles in the Complete series combine extracts from a wide range of primary materials with clear explanatory text to provide readers with a complete introductory resource. This chapter describes the UK’s main constitutional bodies or offices and their roles. The state’s institutions and offices are linked to the three main powers at work within it: executive power, legislative power, and judicial power. The Queen is the head of state for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and heads the three branches of the state, although she is a constitutional monarch and her power is subject to constitutional limits. The executive is an umbrella term that describes two different entities: the political executive and the wider machinery of the government. The political executive contains the Prime Minister and government ministers. The wider machinery of government involves the collection of people who keep the country running, which includes the civil service, the police, the armed forces, members of executive agencies such as the Prison Service, and the welfare benefits system. Parliament is the body tasked with law-making, the scrutiny of Bills, and holding the executive accountable. The courts oversee the operation of the rule of law by reviewing actions, omissions, and decisions taken by the executive to ensure that they are legal, rational, and procedurally proper and that they comply with the terms of the Human Rights Act 1998. The chapter concludes with a discussion of elections to the Westminster Parliament—the mechanism through which MPs are elected and other ways in which those elections could be run.

2. Constitutional Organisations, Institutions, and Roles

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Webley ◽  
Harriet Samuels
Keyword(s):  
Armed Forces ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
The Political ◽  
Welfare Benefits ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Head Of State ◽  
Human Rights Act ◽  
Human Rights Act 1998 ◽  
The Government ◽  
Executive Agencies

Titles in the Complete series combine extracts from a wide range of primary materials with clear explanatory text to provide readers with a complete introductory resource. This chapter describes the UK’s main constitutional bodies or offices and their roles. The state’s institutions and offices are linked to the three main powers at work within it: executive power, legislative power, and judicial power. The Queen is the head of state for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and heads the three branches of the state, although she is a constitutional monarch and her power is subject to constitutional limits. The executive is an umbrella term that describes two different entities: the political executive and the wider machinery of the government. The political executive contains the Prime Minister and government ministers. The wider machinery of government involves the collection of people who keep the country running, which includes the civil service, the police, the armed forces, members of executive agencies such as the Prison Service and the welfare benefits system. Parliament is the body tasked with law-making, the scrutiny of Bills, and holding the executive accountable. The courts oversee the operation of the rule of law by reviewing actions, omissions, and decisions taken by the executive to ensure that they are legal, rational, and procedurally proper, and comply with the terms of the Human Rights Act 1998. The chapter concludes with a discussion of elections to the Westminster Parliament—the mechanism through which MPs are elected and other ways in which those elections could be run.

Executive Power and Constituency Representation in United Kingdom Politics

1980 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roy Gregory
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
The Political ◽  
Policy Decisions ◽  
Specific Policy ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Government ◽  
Elected Representatives

It is sometimes argued that what helps to limit the political influence exercised by elected representatives in the United Kingdom on behalf of those they represent is the inability of MPs to ‘command the power of the executive’. Some MPs, however, are also members of the Government, and do command the power of the executive. This article examines the circumstances in which a fusion of constituency interest and executive power may occur. It concludes that as regards individual grievances, ‘constituency specific’ policy decisions, and matters of ‘high policy’ with a particular impact on their own constituencies, a variety of safeguards and constraints considerably restricts, if it does not eliminate entirely, the scope for constituency-motivated influence on Ministerial decisions.

scholarly journals The Role of the President in the Context of the Political Changes in Slovakia

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Horváth
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
Slovak Republic ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
The Political ◽  
Constitutional Order ◽  
Direct Election ◽  
Head Of State ◽  
Political Background ◽  
The Government

Abstract The aim of the article is to introduce a number of determinants that influence the activities of the office of the President of the Slovak Republic. They caused numerous transformations, which were implemented into our constitutional order over the time. The relations between president and government within the executive power is the most common theme of amendments to the Constitution of the Slovak Republic. Even the introduction of the institute of direct election for the head of state in 1999 arose as the result of strained relations between the same power entities. Therefore, there is a clear tendency that only if both components of the executive power come from the same political background, they carry out their activities in a positive way. This statement can be demonstrated by the political development in Slovakia after the year 2010 - throughout the government of Iveta Radičová, as well as Robert Fico.

F igure 5.9: procedure for bringing an action in the European Court of Human R ights • Domestic remedies must have been exhausted (Article 35). • Application to the ECtHR must be within six months of final hearing in the domestic court. • It must be an admissible application. • There can be a limited audience in a court of first instance (a chamber) relating to the matter. • Within three months a party can ask for a Grandchamber hearing. • Enforcement of the decision of the court is a matter for the Committee of Ministers. Here the matter reverts to the political level but a State who consistently abuses human rights can be expelled from the Council of Europe. The remedies under the English legislation allow for the following. Figure 5.10: remedies under the Human Rights Act 1998 • English courts and tribunals take account of cases in the ECtHR and other relevant courts and decide cases accordingly. • English courts can note whether legislation is incompatible with the Convention and if so issue a declaration of incompatibility. They have no power to declare primary or secondary legislation invalid, although they do have a power to invalidate secondary legislation if the primary legislation that it is based on does not forbid it. This severely limits the power of the judges to enforce the Convention rights. • If Parliament decides that the incompatibility should be dealt with there is a fast track procedure for delegated legislation to deal with the speedy removal of the incompatibility allowing a ‘remedial’ order to be enacted. • Public authorities can be fined for contravention of the Act. • Courts must act in a manner compatible with the Act. • All statutes must carry a declaration of compatibility with the HRA 1998 signed by the minister responsible for the original Bill stating that the legislation is not incompatible or if it is incompatible that the government intends the legislation to be incompatible. In keeping with the ‘hands on’ approach of this text, the HRA 1998 can be found in Appendix 2. Read it through quickly to get an idea of it and then carefully do the following exercise. You will also find two diagrams: the HRA 1998 sections and the HRA 1998 Schedules.

2012 ◽  
pp. 139-139
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
The Political ◽  
Domestic Court ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
European Court ◽  
Hands On ◽  
Human Rights Act ◽  
Human Rights Act 1998 ◽  
The Government ◽  
Court Of First Instance

scholarly journals We need to talk: 'democratic dialogue' and the ongoing saga of prisoner disenfranchisement

2020 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-74
Author(s):  
C R G Murray
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Reform Process ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
European Court ◽  
Margin Of Appreciation ◽  
Domestic Courts ◽  
Human Rights Act ◽  
Human Rights Act 1998 ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Right

Challenges to prisoner disenfranchisement in the United Kingdom have persisted for more than a decade, progressing through the domestic courts to the European Court of Human Rights and back again. The issue has been subject to a prolonged two-stage consultation. And yet, in spite of the decision in Hirst v UK (No 2) that the current disenfranchisement regime breaches the right of prisoners to vote, the governments in office since this decision have to date declined to introduce legislation to rectify the breach. This article considers the response of the United Kingdom’s domestic courts to this situation, focusing upon the general unwillingness of the courts to confront the government over the stalled reform process and the implications of this reluctance for the operation of the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA). The prisoner enfranchisement cases give rise to important questions regarding the domestic courts’ discretion to re-interpret provisions so as to bring the law within the margin of appreciation and whether multiple declarations of incompatibility should be issued if the government fails to respond to the first in an appropriate and timely manner.   

The Impact for the Church of England of the Human Rights Act 1998

2000 ◽  
Vol 5 (27) ◽  
pp. 431-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Hill
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
European Convention ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
European Court ◽  
Human Rights Act ◽  
Human Rights Act 1998 ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Domestic Law

Though the first nation state of the Council of Europe to ratify the European Convention on Human Rights on 18th March 1951, and though permitting individual petition to the European Court in Strasbourg since 1966, the United Kingdom declined to give effect to the Convention in its domestic law until the government recently passed the Human Rights Act 1998. The Act received the Royal Assent in November 1998 and will come into force on 2nd October 2000.

Disciplinary Uniformity in Uniform—A Success of the Human Rights Act 1998?

2008 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 170-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Gale
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
World War ◽  
The Public ◽  
The First World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Human Rights Act ◽  
Human Rights Act 1998 ◽  
Military Discipline ◽  
First World

Apart from an awareness of shameful treatment to some shell-shocked soldiers on active duty in the First World War, the subjects of military discipline in general and courts-martial in particular are unlikely to permeate the consciousness of the public at large or, indeed, the vast majority of criminal lawyers. This article explores some of the history of both, the current position in relation to courts-martial and the planned reforms under the Armed Forces Act 2006. That the Human Rights Act 1998 exposed some of the anomalities and worst practices of courts-martial is undeniable. It seems equally likely that the 1998 Act was at least a catalyst for the wholesale review and modernisation of military discipline carried out by the 2006 Act.

the presidential and the semi-presidential system

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peshraw Mohammed Ameen
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Realistic Model ◽  
The Political ◽  
Kurdistan Region ◽  
Political Responsibility ◽  
Parliamentary System ◽  
Head Of State ◽  
Presidential System ◽  
The Government

In this research we dealt with the aspects of the presidential system and the semi-presidential system, and he problematic of the political system in the Kurdistan Region. Mainly The presidential system has stabilized in many important countries, and the semi-presidential concept is a new concept that can be considered a mixture of parliamentary and presidential principles. One of the features of a semi-presidential system is that the elected president is accountable to parliament. The main player is the president who is elected in direct or indirect general elections. And the United States is a model for the presidential system, and France is the most realistic model for implementing the semi-presidential system. The French political system, which lived a long period under the traditional parliamentary system, introduced new adjustments in the power structure by strengthening the powers of the executive authority vis-à-vis Parliament, and expanding the powers of the President of the Republic. In exchange for the government while remaining far from bearing political responsibility, and therefore it can be said that the French system has overcome the elements of the presidential system in terms of objectivity and retains the elements of the parliamentary system in terms of formality, so it deserves to be called the semi-presidential system. Then the political system in the Kurdistan Region is not a complete parliamentary system, and it is not a presidential system in light of the presence of a parliament with powers. Therefore, the semi-presidential system is the most appropriate political system for this region, where disputes are resolved over the authority of both the parliament and the regional president, and a political system is built stable. And that because The presence of a parliamentary majority, which supports a government based on a strategic and stable party coalition, which is one of the current problems in the Kurdistan region. This dilemma can be solved through the semi-presidential system. And in another hand The impartiality of the head of state in the relationship with the government and parliament. The head of state, with some relations with the government, can participate in legislative competencies with Parliament.

scholarly journals The anniversary of the military coup attempt in Turkey, July 15–16, 2016. The evolution of a political system

2017 ◽  
pp. 63-68
Author(s):  
Y. S. Kudryashova
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Authoritarian Regime ◽  
Military Coup ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Military ◽  
Ruling Party ◽  
Coup Attempt

During the government of AK Party army leaders underprivileged to act as an exclusive guarantor preserving a secular regime in the country. The political balance between Secular and Islamite elites was essentially removed after Erdogan was elected Turkish President. Consistently toughening authoritarian regime of a ruling party deeply accounts for a military coup attempt and earlier periodically occurred disturbance especially among the young. The methods of a coup showed the profundity of a split and the lack of cohesion in Turkish armed forces. Erdogan made the best use of a coup attempt’s opportunities to concentrate all power in his hands and to consolidate a present regime. The mass support of the population during a coup attempt ensured opportunities for a fundamental reorganization of a political system. Revamped Constitution at most increases political powers of the President.

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