Page 159 - DPOL202_COMPARATIVE_POLITICS_AND_GOVERNMENT_ENGLISH

Comparative Politics and Government

Notes the government called the Prime Minister and a relatively powerless head of the state called the King
or Queen. This development has led to a situation calling for the English writers to make a legal
distinction between the Monarch and the Crown of which he is a part. The position becomes clear
with this aphorism that while monarch “is a person; the Crown is a symbol — the symbol of supreme
executive power. This power used to be wielded by the monarch personally, but in modern
constitutional monarchies it is exercised by the ministers of the Crown who are still formally the
Queen’s ministers but who are very much masters in their own house.”
The English writers do not regard the Crown as a headgear of the king or queen; they consider it an
institution vested with all powers of the government. That is why, Sir Sidney Low calls it ‘a convenient
working hypothesis’ and Amos describes it as ‘a bundle of sovereign powers, prerogatives and rights
— a legal idea.’
It makes it evident that while the Crown is the repository of all powers, the king is just the head of the
state with no authority in his hands. He is a titular head acting on the advice of the ministers who are
accountable to the Parliament and ultimately to the electorate of the country. A long course of struggle
between the kings and their people brought about a situation in which the real centre of power
shifted from a concrete monarch to an abstract Crown. Today the Crown represents a synthesis of
supreme authority vested in and exercised by the ministers and the Parliament acting in the name of
the ‘sovereign’. In a word, the Crown is the key-stone of the constitutional structure of Britain whose
powers “are always used as the cabinet, supported by the Parliament, wants them to be used.”
Title and Succession: The title and succession of the monarch are governed by the laws made by the
Parliament. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 established the fact of the supremacy of Parliament over
the king and laws made by the Parliament after this bloodless revolution determined various issues
relating to the title and succession of the monarch. For instance, the Act of Settlement of 1701 provides
that the Crown shall be hereditary in the line of the Princess of Sophia of Hanover so long as it
remains Protestant. If a family has no heir within the prescribed degree, the Parliament may by its
law bestow Crown on another family. However, the Statute of Westminster of 1931 has made it
mandatory that such a decision of the Parliament shall be ratified by the Parliaments of the
Commonwealth of Nations, if they pay final allegiance to the British monarch. The principle of heredity
is determined by the rule of primogeniture at common law which means that an elder line is preferred
to a younger one and that in the same line a male is preferred to a female.
There are other laws relating to the regency, incapacity of the king, and royal marriage. The Regency
Act of 1953 lays down the first potential regent (below 18 years) shall be the Duke of Edinburgh and
there after the Princess Margaret and then those in succession to the Throne who are of age. If the
sovereign is abroad or unfit to work for some reason, there is a provision for the appointment of the
Counsellors of State to act in the officiating capacity. The Royal Marriages Act of 1872 says that
consent of the king is necessary to a marriage in case the person is below 25 years and the marriage
might affect the question of succession; in case the person is above 25, no such consent is needed save
a year’s notice to the Privy Council. In 1936 the Royal Abdication Act came into force whereby the
king may give up his office and then he becomes free from the limitations enjoined upon the great
office.
Formal Powers of the Crown: It is, indeed, a peculiar feature of the British constitutional system that
while the powers of the king have declined, the powers of the Crown have increased. The reason for
this should be traced in the ever-growing process of democratisation. The powers of the Crown have
emanated from two sources — the acts made by the Parliament and the prerogatives derived from
the common law. While the laws made by the Parliament are explicit and are also amendable by it
alone, “the prerogatives are the residue of discretionary or arbitrary authority which at any time is
legally left in the hands of the Crown. While keeping in view that the powers of the Crown are vast
and they are exercised not by the king as a person but by H.M.’s Government, it shall be worthwhile
to mention then in the following manner:
He Crown has very important executive powers. As supreme executive head, it sees that all national
laws are duly enforced and observed. It directs, supervises, and controls the work of administrative
agencies, collects and expends national revenue, appoints administrative and judicial officers,

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