The Monarch (The Crown).

The United Kingdom of Great Britain has a special political system (called Westminster system). And the role of the monarch in this system is unique. It is different from the role of the monarch in traditional limited monarchy. First of all, the monarch reigns, but doesn’t governs. King or Queen has only nominal power, de jure he or she is the head of the state, but his or her functions are quite different. Halsbury describes it as follows:

The Head of State, and the supreme executive officer in the State;... the titular head of the Church of England, the Law, the Navy, the Army and the Air Force, and the source of all justice and titles of honour, distinctions and dignities; foreign affairs are conducted, declarations of war and peace made, and the law executed and administered, solely in her name, although the monarch acts in such matters only on the advice of her ministers.

The Queen nominally concentrate all the power in the state.

1. Legislature. The Queen is a part of the legislature—here she is known as 'the Queen in Parliament'. It is the Queen who opens and dissolves (closes) Parliament. Laws passed by Parliament can become laws of the land only when she signs her assent to them. The last occasion on which Royal Assent was refused by a monarch was 300 years ago (see next chapter). It is now a feature of the constitution that the monarch always gives Royal Assent to laws passed in Parliament—it is her 'constitutional duty' to do so.

2. Executive. The Queen is head of the executive. Government operates in her name. It is the Queen who invites a new Prime Minister to form a Government. The Government Ministers are chosen by the Prime Minister, but they are formally granted their 'seals of office' by the Queen, and are called 'Ministers of the Crown'. Even the leader of the largest 'minority' party, which opposes the Government in Parliament, is called 'Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition', and is paid a special salary for holding this office.

3. Judiciary. It is in the 'name of the Queen' that our system of justice is administered. The sovereign is the 'fountain of justice and mercy'. The actual power of doing justice in the courts has been placed in the hands of the judges but they are all called 'Her Majesty's Judges'; they receive their 'Warrants of Appointment' from the Queen and all courts display the Royal Coat of Arms to show that they do their work in the name of the Queen. All criminal prosecutions are brought in the name of the Queen. The cases are called R v Smith, or Jones or whatever the defendant is called. Here 'R v' means 'Rex versus' or 'Regina versus'—'The King against' or 'The Queen against'—depending on whether we have a king or queen on the throne. Even the prisons are 'HM [Her Majesty's] prisons'. We saw earlier how hundreds of years ago the king would sit in court to hear cases. Today, however, the Queen does not actually sit in court, for all justice is administered 'in her name'.

Although the Queen's position in the constitution may be a largely ceremonial one, its great importance is that she is uniquely placed to bind together the most powerful bodies in the country under a vow of loyalty to her. They must work together in the Crown's best interests. These are always considered to be the best interests of the nation as a whole, rather than of the Queen as an individual. At the same time the position of the Crown helps to divide up their powers, and keep them separate. In this way, in theory, no one can acquire too much power. This is the constitutional role of the monarch, a job that kings and queens have now done for centuries.

The Queen has a special relationship with the courts. They are essentially 'hers', in the sense that justice is done in her name—hence the description the Royal Courts of Justice. The ancient legal principle that the monarch cannot be compelled to give evidence in his or her own courts stems from the constitutional theory that as the monarch is the highest authority in the land, there is therefore no higher authority than the monarch to issue an order requiring her to attend court.

In addition to this, the Queen is the representative of the Great Britain, so she has a very important role in the international relations.

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 921