Comparative Governments. British Political System Essay

Introduction

One of the unique features of the United Kingdom political system is that it has an unwritten constitution. Compared to other nations, the United Kingdom does not have a single constitutional document hence the term Unwritten or de facto constitution. Most of the United Kingdom constitution exists in court judgments, treaties, and written form of statutes. Other unwritten sources of the constitution include royal prerogatives and the parliamentary constitutional conventions. The British constitution is based on the parliamentary sovereignty doctrines making the parliament the supreme and final source of law of the United Kingdom. Though the European Union’s European Communities Act complicates this principle, the United Kingdom has the power to change the unwritten constitution by passing new acts of parliament (Farnborough, p. 44).

Main body

The Acts of Parliament (statutes that have received parliament approval) are one of the most important sources of the United Kingdom constitution. According to the unwritten constitution there are three elements to sovereignty namely the monarch, the House of Lords and the House of Commons. These are separate entities and no individual can be a part of more than one component. United Kingdom treaties do not automatically become law; they are incorporated into the constitution by means of the Acts of Parliament. For instance, the European Convention on Human rights has to an extent been factored in the United Kingdom domestic law albeit through the Human Rights Act. The European Union law has an impact on the United Kingdom law to the extent that its two houses permit. Since the United Kingdom uses common and civil law, judgments of the higher courts are used to form the precedents law. High courts’ decisions therefore bind the lower courts and the judges. Other sources to the constitution include constitutional conventions and the Royal Prerogative. Many conventions are of ancient origin and are mainly not officially enforceable in courts. The royal prerogative refers to powers with no statutory base belonging to the sovereign. Its most important power is the appointment or dismissal of the prime minister. It also has the power to: make war and peace, summon, prorogue and dissolve parliament, regulate the civil service, ratify treaties, and issue passports. In the history of the United Kingdom and unlike many other countries like France and the United states, there have never been plans to wholly change the constitution. There have been disputes though with some theorists suggesting that the 1688 compromise between the monarch and the parliament represents the constitution (Farnborough, p. 44).

Another distinguishing factor of the British political system is its parliamentary system and in particular the House of Lords. The upper chamber or the House of Lords is very unique and has no parallel with any other parliamentary institution anywhere in the world. Among its distinguishing factors include:

• It does not have a fixed number of members.
• Members (also referred to as hereditary peers) were historically nominated by the king or queen, a trait seen as very undemocratic thus leading to a significant reduction of the hereditary peers to just ninety two members.
• The House of Lords members are nominated by the government. They are called life peers meaning that they can serve in the House of Lords for as long as they wish or up to their death. These positions were previously inherited by their family members but this has been changed. Though the current number of life peers is 629, there is no designated fixed number. Most members are former politicians and distinguished personalities in health, education and social issues.
• There are twenty six Archbishops and Bishops of the Church of England. (Farnborough, p. 44)

The reforms I would propose

If it was upon my jurisdiction, I would make efforts to reform the nature of the House of Lords (the upper chamber). First, I think it is important to have a fixed number of members in the House of Lords unlike now where there can be an infinite figure of members even though logic does not allow. This will serve to ensure that a situation does not arise whereby a bloated number of members are appointed, say like a thousand five hundred, for any reason. Politicians or people in power tend to appoint individuals in positions of power so as to appease them or as a congratulatory gesture for a favor previously done. This may lead to an unreasonably large figure as the appointing figure tries to make all his ‘friends’ happy.

In my view the House of Lords is a fundamentally undemocratic institution. The case of the hereditary peers who are appointed by the king or the queen is in my view very undemocratic. I think anyone representing or purporting to represent the people should be duly elected by the people, either directly or by virtue of majority (like the UK chooses it’s Prime Minister). But the United Kingdom scenario is a bit bizarre taking into consideration that we are living in an era of democracy. Those members who are not appointed by the queen are suggested by the prime minister of the day and approved by the queen. I will overhaul this system so that all members are elected by the people. I also believe it is in the interest of the United Kingdom government to be labeled secular. Though I concede I am not very familiar with the United Kingdom history, I do not think there should be any religious representation in parliament especially if it is entrenched in the constitution. No one should be denied representation on the basis religious affiliation but equally so no one should be guaranteed representation on the basis of religious affiliation. Even the representations done based on religion, referred to as Lords Spiritual, do not represent some churches. For instance, the Church of Scotland has no representatives in the House of Lords. The present day Lords Spiritual leader includes Archbishop of Canterbury, Archbishop of York, the Bishops of London, Durham and the Winchester (Carmichael, p. 30). United Kingdom is a diverse society with numerous religions as well as non religious people among its citizenry. If there was any representation done on the basis of religion, then this system should take all religions into account, a process that would not only complex but also tedious and one that I would not propose.

I would also abolish the life peers system because I believe it is not only undemocratic but also outdated. In a way I see it taking away United Kingdom’s moral authority to sell democratic ideals when it has a system that allows unelected individuals to serve in a parliament for life. This should not be a feature of any government in the world in the twenty first century. The prime minister also seems to have a lot of powers in relation to this particular government. Taking into consideration that the Prime Minister is not directly elected by the people but by the party majority, he/she should not have the power to write a list of individuals and then hand over to the queen for approval. This leaves the duty of choosing people’s representatives (parliamentary) practically in the hands of two people.

French Political system

The French political system is a hybrid of both the presidential system and the parliamentary system. It is referred to as semi presidential representative democratic republic. The president of France therefore becomes the head of state whereas the prime minister heads the government. The executive powers and the legislative powers are vested in the government. This means that the prime minister and the president are both actively involved in running the French State. One distinct character is that the president is elected using the popular vote unlike in other parliamentary systems where the head of state is the chairperson of the party with the required majority in the parliament. Another unique feature of the French political system is that it differs from other presidential systems in that the president appoints the cabinet though it is not responsible to him but the legislature instead. The legislature is empowered to dismiss a cabinet minister through a vote of no confidence (Duverger, p. 109).

There is no clear cut division of labor between the president and the prime minister but political conventions are used to shed light on the matter should never arise. As indicated earlier the president is elected through popular vote while the prime minister comes from the party with the majority in parliament. In some cases, the popularly elected president may come from the party with a minority in the parliament, this means that both the president and the prime minister will come from two opposing parties (Duverger, p. 99). If they proceed to form a government, then situation is referred to as cohabitation. This kind of system may either lead to a fair system with checks and balances or a conflict ridden government. This is as a result of ideological differences taking into consideration that the dominant parties in present day France are center right and the leftist socialist party. If such a situation occurs the president is obligated to appoint a prime minister who will be approved by the majority party. This is due to the fact that the prime minister, when appointed by the president, must be approved by the parliament. If the president appoints a prime minister from his party (in this case the minority) he will have an extremely slim chance of being approved by the parliament.

This mode of governance originated in France and has been exercised in recent history albeit few times. In 1986 President Francois Mitterrand was obligated to appoint Jacques Chirac as his prime minister after RPR gained the majority in the coalition. During their two years in power together, President Mitterrand took care of the foreign policy while Prime Minister Jacques Chirac concentrated his efforts on domestic affairs. Such governments sometimes result to the president calling for snap elections when his approval ratings are up. This enables the president’s party to regain majority so that he/she can nominate a prime minister from his/her own party since the majority will approve. The Mitterrand-Chirac combination came to an end when he called fresh elections that saw his party win a majority. A similar scenario though was to be witnessed later when in 1993 Mitterrand found himself in the same situation. He was again forced to nominate Jacques Chirac as the prime minister.

Reforms towards the present day Russia were started shortly before the fall of communism in by the then General Secretary of the Communist Party of Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev but he was not very successful in his efforts. His policies of restructuring and openness did apparently did not leave the Soviet Union citizens content, they demanded more openness and more freedom and the system eventually collapsed. Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as the president of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic on Christmas day of 1991. Barely two weeks later, was the union formally dissolved. The Russian Federation succeeded the USSR and inherited its United Nations Security Council permanent seat, its foreign assets and debts. Things between Gorbachev successor President Boris Yeltsin and the Russian parliament did not work too well with the parliament ignoring, blocking, or overturning Yeltsin’s initiatives on holding new elections, drafting a new constitution and introducing more democratic and economic reforms. In September 1993 President Boris Yeltsin dissolved the parliament and called for fresh national elections and a new constitution. In October a conflict between the legislatures became violent making Yeltsin to order the military to capture the parliament. The voters approved a new constitution and voted in a new parliament in December 1993 with Yeltsin remaining the dominant figure.

The 1993 constitution saw the president holding considerable executive powers and no vice president. The constitution put in place a bicameral legislature consisting of the lower house and the upper house (State Duma and the Federation Council). The president:

• Is the head of state
• Wields the power nominate the highest state officials including the Prime Minister and ambassadors who are then passed by Duma.
• Pass any decrees without the consent of the lower house (Duma).
• He is the head of the armed forces and the Security Council.
• Directs Russia’s domestic and foreign policy (Christian, p. 287)

The Judicial system has a constitutional court, military courts, arbitrage (commercial) courts, and the courts of general jurisdiction. The constitutional court is empowered to arbitrate disputes between the legislature and the executive. The courts of primary jurisdiction, courts of appeal, and the higher courts attend to civil and criminal cases.

The 1993 constitutional changes reduced some of the legislature powers considerably. The government consists of a prime minister, a deputy prime minister, and federal ministers. Government ministries formulate and implement credit, foreign, and monetary policies as well as defense and state security functions. They are supposed to ensure that the rule of law is upheld and guard civil and human rights. The government is also responsible for formulating the state budget which is then submitted to the State Duma (Christian, p. 287).

The Russian president wields too much power and this is evident if one takes a look at how the former president Vladimir Putin exercised them. There is too much authority vested on the presidency even making him be compared with that of Charles de Gaulle of the French Fifth Republic. This could be due to the fact that the Russian president wields powers comparable to monarchical ones and also because despite this, Russia has enjoyed considerable stability just like France during de Gaulle era. Vladimir Putin managed to single handedly choose his successor, incumbent Dmitri Medvedev and also designate himself as the prime minister. This was after it became impossible for him to run for another term owing to the fact that his term had expired according to the Russian constitution.

Works Cited

1. Carmichael, Paul. Peters, Guy (1999). The House of Lords: Its Parliamentary and Judicial Role. Oxford: Hart Publishing. pp. 23-40
2. Christian, David (1998). A History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia. Blackwell Publishing pp. 286–288
3. Duverger, Maurice 1980.’A New Political System Model: Semi-Presidential Government’ European Journal of Political Research, pp.87-165.
4. Farnborough, T. E. May, 1st Baron. (1996). Constitutional History of England since the Accession of George the Third, London pp. 38-56