ILMI Warrior

Royal Prerogatives In theory, the Queen is the sovereign head of the State for all actions, she has unlimited powers. But in practice she exercises them with the advice of her Ministers. They are her prerogatives. Dicey defines prerogatives of the Crown as “the residue of discretionary power left in the hands of the Crown, whether such power is, in fact, exercised by the King himself or his ministers.” Royal prerogatives should be distinguished from royal powers. Powers of the Crown are conferred on the King by the laws of statutes of the Parliament, but the prerogatives are those powers which the King has exercised under the Common Law and are still left in his hands.  PREROGATIVES OF BRITISH CROWN Hence, the prerogatives can be limited or reduced by the Parliament. But the powers of the Crown are increased, for Parliament confers new powers on it by passing new laws. Some of the royal prerogatives are: “The King can do no wrong” , which means that he is not ...

  The Queen and the Crown The Queen or the King and the Crown should be clearly differentiated, for as Gladstone said, "there is no distinction more vital to the practice of the British Constitution than that which exists between the King and the Crown, between the Monarch as an individual and Monarchy as an institution.” Literally, the word “Crown” means something made of gold and jewels worn by a king. But in the language of the British Constitution, it means the sovereign powers, prerogatives and rights of the King exercised by his Ministers, Parliament or by some official of the State. In the sense, it is a subtle combination of the Sovereign Ministers (especially Cabinet Ministers) and, to a lesser extent, Parliament. Thus understood, the Crown is, as Sir Sidney Low said, “a convenient working hypothesis”, which enables the powers of the Queen to be exercised in reality by her Ministers. The King or Queen is only a human person, who dies and is succeeded by another, but ...

Salient characteristics or merits of the Constitution An Unwritten Constitution One of the most striking features of the British Constitution is that it is unwritten. It is, indeed, the only unwritten Constitution in the world today. In fact, this is the characteristic which made De Tocqueville to remark that “the English Constitution does not really exist." The Frenchmen,  like the Americans, are accustomed to written Constitutions in their country. Finding no such written document, they conclude that England has no Constitution at all. But, as we know, every State has a Constitution which defines the organization and powers of its various organs and departments. In this sense, there is a Constitution in England as in every other country. But it is not wholly unwritten. It comprises two parts. the written part which includes the three elements viz., the Constitutional Charters , the Statutes and the Judicial Decisions and the unwritten part which includes the ...

What is the sanction behind the Conventions? Different writers  have given different reasons as to why the Conventions are observed or  obeyed Conventions of the English Constitution? How do  these arise and why are these obeyed? Why is convention obeyed? According to Dicey, the Conventions are obeyed because these are indirectly sanctioned by the laws. In other words, the breach of a Convention will result in the violation of one or the other law of the Constitution, which will immediately bring the offender into conflict with the Law of the land and the courts. Suppose, for example, that the Parliament is not summoned for two years. Thus, the Convention that it must be summoned at least once a year is violated. If so, a law will be ultimately violated. There will be no Army Act or the Mutiny Act passed by Parliament and the Government will lose all disciplinary authority over the troops. No budget would be adopted and the government will have no money, for...

Convention is a rule of political behaviour, first established to cope with a specific problem, which becomes a precedent for all subsequent political actions and relations between various organs of the government. It is the unwritten rule of political ethics as sacred as law but not enforceable by the courts. Dicey has defined the Conventions as the "rules for determining the mode in which the discretionary powers of the Crown ought to be exercised." Ogg defines Conventions as "understandings, habits or practices or usages or customs which, by their sole authority, regulate a large proportion of the actual day—to—day relations and activities of even the most important of the Public Authorities." The uniqueness of the British Constitution is that it is run by Conventions more than most other written Constitutions. Though these Conventions are unwritten, yet these are understood with great exactness and followed scrupulously by the Ministers and others. CONVEN...