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A constitutional monarchy is a form of
government established under a constitutional system which acknowledges a hereditary or elected monarch as head of state. Modern constitutional
monarchies usually implement the concept of trias politica, and have
the monarch as the (symbolic) head of the executive branch .
Today, constitutional monarchy is almost always combined with representative democracy, and represents a compromise between theories of sovereignty which place
sovereignty in the hands of the people, and those that see a role for tradition in the theory of government. Though the king or
queen may be regarded as the government's symbolic head, it is the Prime
Minister, whose power derives directly or indirectly from elections, who actually governs the country.
Although current constitutional monarchies are mostly representative democracies, this has not always historically been the
case. There have been monarchies which have coexisted with constitutions which were fascist (or quasi-fascist), as was the case in Italy, Japan and Spain, or those in which the government is run as a military dictatorship, as was the case in Thailand.
Queen Rania of Jordan has
commented that the difference between ruling a monarchy and ruling a democracy is that, in the latter, an error costs at most the
next election, whereas a monarch might well lose their head.
Origins
The concept of constitutional monarchy owes its origin to the absolute monarchies of the later Middle Ages, where
governmental authority was exercised by the monarch and his (or in rare occasions her) government.
The development of popular participation in democracy saw power shifting to governments selected from and answerable to
legislative assemblies and parliaments, producing more democratic systems of governments in which the monarch 'reigns but does
not rule'.
Codified and uncodified constitutions
Most modern constitutional monarchies operate under a written fundamental or organic law known as a constitution, which strictly defines the roles possessed by the head of state, the
executive, legislature and judiciary. As well as the strict definitions, restrictions exist as to the manner by which these
definitions may be changed, with constitutional
amendments being passed either by plebiscite (also called referendum), by weighted majorities in parliament or by the voting through of an
amendment by two successive parliaments, with a general election in between. Among constitutional monarchies possessing codified constitutions are:
The former monarchies in Italy and Greece
also operated under codified constitutions.
The United Kingdom is an example where there is an uncodified constitution. Unlike many countries, there is no
single document that defines out the structure and power of government . Instead Parliament possesses the ability by means of an ordinary law passed by a simple majority to change, vary,
empower or abolish an institution of state, including the monarchy. In the United Kingdom, a collection of written laws,
unwritten conventions, the reserve power, the Royal Prerogative and traditions shape the relationship between the various institutions of state; the
monarchy, the Crown, the government, the House of Lords, the House of Commons and the Judiciary. In the absence of any single
constitutional document, these together are described as the UK's uncodified constitution.
The theoretical head of the executive
In a constitutional monarchy the post of the head of state is usually
passed (by some form of primogeniture) within a royal family. The head of state is normally the theoretical head of the
executive, producing phrases like Her Majesty's Government. In some countries the monarch (or in states in the Commonwealth of Nations a governor-general) may chair the
cabinet, though they do not play a role in policy formation. In other countries, such as the United Kingdom, the monarch may have
a right of access to all government documentation, as well as a detailed briefing from his or her Prime Minister. However some
modern monarchical constitutions exclude the monarch from any participation in government, eg, the King of Sweden and the Emperor
of Japan, though in the former case he receives detailed briefings and chairs certain cabinet meetings. Nevertheless, both still
qualify to be called "constitutional monarchs".
It is said in constitutional monarchies that the monarch "reigns but does not rule." Most modern constitutional monarchies owe
their origins to systems in which the monarch not merely reigned but governed, as in the
absolute monarchies which replaced aristocratic systems in the Renaissance. In theory
the legislative assembly and the cabinet may or may not be democratically elected or democratically accountable, but is
usually democratically elected.
A practical example: Britain's Elizabeth II and Governments
In the United Kingdom many important governmental actions are done
'on behalf of' the Queen Elizabeth II or she exercises her powers at the direction of the Prime Minister. These
are generally things which remain within the Royal Prerogative. These powers are diverse: for example they include (a)
appointment of Bishops in the Church of England (b) the power to appoint a Government (c) call and dismiss Parliament (d) declare war (e) appoint members of the House of Lords (f) carry out all criminal prosecutions (g) give medals (h) control all the armed forces (i)
control police forces (j) pass (or refuse to pass) Acts of
Parliament (k) appoint judges and (l) to pardon (which was material under the
Tudors, and is the basis of the mechanism for directing the appointment of Bishops). However, such activities are not (generally) done by her directly and were the Queen
to carry out these functions independent of Parliament she would precipitate a
constitutional crisis. In addition, historically it has
been held that the Queen cannot be prosecuted for any criminal offence or be required to give testimony in court.
Nevertheless, the monarch still has important and useful functions. The nineteenth century British constitutional writer,
Walter Bagehot, described the monarch having
'the right to be consulted, the right to advise and the right to warn '. Queen Elizabeth II meets
her prime minister every Tuesday evening for a confidential audience, at which she and her prime minister discuss matters of
state. The longer a reign, the greater the degree of experience a monarch has, particularly as she receives copies of all state
documentation, all cabinet memoranda, reports from British ambassadors worldwide, security service intelligence, etc. A
Parliamentary Committee was told in the early 1970s that Queen Elizabeth spends three hours daily 'doing the boxes' (ie, reading
state papers sent to her from all departments of state). Sir John Peck, on being appointed British ambassador to Senegal, said that when Kissing Hands (the
formal name of the appointment procedure) he received a more perceptive analysis of African and Senegalese politics from Queen
Elizabeth than from any government official, based on her personal experiences on state visits, briefing documents and
knowledge of African leaders, experiences that desk-bound officials, no matter how theoretically knowledgeable, had never
had.
In the mid 1970s, for example, Queen Elizabeth's belief that contacts between a British official, Lord Grenville, and the
Government of Rhodesia were worth pursuing, shaped the policy of then Labour
cabinet. Grenville's report mentioned some signs of movement. The Labour cabinet saw the scale of the movement as too
insignificant to warrant further exploration. However Queen Elizabeth, who had ten years continuous experience of the
Rhodesian issue (unlike the ministers who had only a relatively small degree of experience, having only come to power in the
early 1970s), observed how any sign of movement was a change from the lack of movement present previously. The Labour
ministers paid heed to her privately expressed observation (that followed a conversation she had had with James Callaghan at a state banquet for the Italian president) and maintained
the initial contacts. These contacts over a number of years finally led to the Lancaster House
conference that established Zimbabwe. James Prior, a minister in the subsequent
Conservative Party government, wrote of how the
'intoxicating mix' of the Queen and the Foreign Secretary, Lord
Carrington kept Margaret Thatcher from abandoning the earlier
contacts between the previous Labour government of James Callaghan and the Rhodesian government.
In early 2003, as the Labour government of Tony Blair pondered whether to
enter into a war with Saddam Hussein, Queen Elizabeth was the
only senior governmental figure still in office who had had experience of the Suez Crisis in the late 1950s, and who as a result could mention to Blair observations on the nature of the
Suez debacle and lessons to be learned from it, in deciding on whether to go to war with Saddam. It is not known what comments Queen Elizabeth made to the Prime Minister, but few doubted but that
she would give the benefit of her observations (having been monarch at the time, she had had access to all the then government
documentation and memoranda, as well as having been a confidante of the then Prime Minister Anthony Eden and his cabinet) and that the Prime Minister would take her observations very seriously.
Elizabeth II came to the throne in 1952, meaning that she could give to Tony Blair observations and advice based on observations
and advice given to her by every prime minister back to Sir Winston
Churchill and including Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan, Alec Douglas-Home,
Harold Wilson, Edward
Heath, James Callaghan, Margaret Thatcher and John Major, as well as the
comments of hundreds of ministers since 1952.
However, this access that the Queen has to the highest levels of government has been questioned in recent years. It is pointed
out that while the current monarch has many years experience, the monarch has not always, and will not always have. For example,
on what could the Queen have advised or warned Churchill at the beginning of her reign? This arguement is easily countered,
simply recognising that a monarch's training begins at birth. The Queen had studied and worked under the guidance of her father
for years before finally acceeding to the throne.
Republicans have argued that what advice and warnings the Queen gives Prime Ministers are unaccountable and secretive.
Furthermore the case is made that as an unelected figurehead the Queen should keep out of politics.
Other monarchs
Other monarchs possess similar experience and perrogatives, though none with the same length of service or degree of active
participation as Queen Elizabeth II. Queen Margrethe II
of Denmark chairs state council meetings and has done so since 1972, meaning that she
is intimately aware of all government decision taking and is in a position to offer practical advice. The late King Baudouin of the Belgians had experience from the early 1950s to his
death in the early 1990s. In a country divided between two communities, some said that Baudouin was the only Belgian in
Belgium.
The successful escape to England of the Norwegian king Haakon VII and his government from the German invasion prevented the establishment of a legitimate
government and forced a burdensome military occupation on Hitler. His son,
the late Olav V of Norway was monarch from the 1950s till his death
in 1990 but had as Crown Prince an involvement in the Norwegian Privy Council dating back to 1922. Generations of governments and government
ministers listened attentively to his observations.
Sweden's Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, though no
longer intimately involved in government since the constitutional Instrument of Government (of 1974) abolished the monarch's
active governmental role, gets frequent briefings from the Swedish cabinet en masse. After his role in moving Spain from
Franco's dictatorship to a modern parliamentary democracy, and most strikingly in his central role in stopping a coup d'etat in
the early 1980s, few ignore King Juan Carlos of Spain.
During the American-led occupation period of Japan following World War 2, the Japanese
Emperor was stripped of all authority and became one of the world's weakest constitutional monarchies. During the war, the
Emperor had ruled as an absolute monarch and was manipulated by his
advisors. Eager to prevent such an abuse of power from ever again occurring, the new American-made constitution stated that the
Emperor would only be a "symbol of the nation" and was forbidden from any degree of participation in the political process.
Some other constitutional monarchies
See also:
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