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Monarchy, checks and balances
Posted by Luke Richards (@hypnotic)
Thursday, 18th February 2010
Having just read Adam White's piece here on House of Twits about the Monarchy and Democracy, I feel a need to add my own thoughts.
Adam's thoughts were primarily focussed on ideology, and the principles of democracy. I certainly don't disagree with that and, if every other argument fell down, that one alone would still be strong enough to show the desperate need to get rid of the monarchy.
My belief comes not from this though, but from the internal workings of government. If we look at some of the strong, stable republics around the world, we see a strong argument for the separation of powers doctrine. For those unfamiliar, this is the idea that there are three branches of government; Judicial (courts), Executive (head of state + ministers) and legislative (Parliament/Assembly/Congress etc). These powers, the doctrine suggests, should be distinct. No one person should hold office in, nor should they exercise significant control over, more than one of these branches. The maxim that underlies this theory is that power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely. Power divided up into thirds will reduce the risk of the corruption by power.
Necessary to prevent a corruption through near-absolute power within one's own branch is a series of checks and balances.
I'm never one to claim that the American political system is perfect, but here's one idea they've got right. Each branch has a small element of power over each other, in order to ensure they do not overreach their authority:
The Judiciary has constitutional authority and the power of judicial review over both other bodies. If it views any of the actions to be unconstitutional, it can declare so and go as far as striking whole Acts of Congress off the statute books.
The Executive (the President) has the power of veto of legislation to which he does not approve. The requirement of Presidential signature before a law comes into force means the President has the decision to turn down laws that are excessive.
The legislature can, with the consent of a supermajority of members of congress, override the veto of a President who is using it to be obstructive to the will of the people. The congress can also impeach Judges and the President, if deemed to be guilty of 'high crimes and misdemeanours'.
So what does this have to do with the constitutional monarchy, I hear you cry? Surely we have this seperation of powers, just in a less democratic way? It is true, the Queen is head of state and can take no part in Parliamentary proceedings, and powers are more seperate now than they were a year ago: the highest court no longer sits as the legislature.
While the constitutional powers are now perhaps more seperate than they've ever been, it only takes a cursory glance at the system to see this is not practically the case. The Queen, because of her undemocratic position and distance from the average Briton, is by no means actively empowered to make decisions. No Monarch, as far as I'm aware, has even threatened to withold assent to an Act of Parliament since Queen Victoria allegedly told Gladstone she would not allow any legislation to become law that was prejudicial to lesbians.* The Prime Minister is head of the executive, in practice, and all ministers of the Crown are drawn from Parliament. The Monarch acts on the advice of the Prime Minister and the Privy Council and so, because the Queen is hamstrung by convention and democratic principle, there is absolutely no-one who can hold the executive to account. The checks and balances between legislature and executive simply aren't there.
We can see the effect this has had on Parliamentary democracy over the years. This Labour government has made grotesque use of the powers given to the Leader of the House (a cabinet minister) to control Parliamentary timetable to minimise scrutiny of legislation and push through some of the worst laws in centuries, purely on the basis of significant parliamentary majorities. What's more, once passed, these unscrutinised laws cannot possibly be vetoed, because the one with the power to do so hasn't been elected.
The Democratic argument for disbanding the monarchy is fundamental and sufficient, but it is very ideology based. Here it is possible to see exactly why, in practice, the lack of democratic accountability in our head of state can have serious practical effects on the political system as whole - not by empowering the unelected Queen, but by disabling the constitutional Head of Executive from calling to account the practical Head of State and Parliament.
*I believe the story goes that QV didn't take this stance out of any defence of gay rights, but rather because she didn't believe lesbianism existed and didn't want superfluous legislation on the books!
