Page 168 - DPOL202_COMPARATIVE_POLITICS_AND_GOVERNMENT_ENGLISH

Unit 7: Constitutional Structure: Executive

only of his cabinet but of the administration as a whole. The monarch is the fountain-head of honour, Notes
but all honours can be awarded by him to one whose name is recommended by the Prime Minister.
Fourth, the Prime Minister is not only the controller of his party as well as of government, he has also
become the real centroller of the army of civil servants. Above all, the Prime Minister has become the
controller of the Parliament. His will becomes a law when an official bill is carried through the House
of Commons, it cannot be obstructed by the House of Lords for ever, and the royal assent is a matter
of constitutional formality. Moreover, there is no judicial check on him as the courts have no power
of judicial review the like of which we find in the United States.
Let us reiterate what we have said above. The Prime Minister is yet far away from being dubbed as
the President, much less an autocrat.
The fact of Cabinet’s strong position wherefrom the strong position of the Prime Minister emerges
cannot be lost sight of. Or as one leading English political figure endorses on the basis of his personal
knowledge of the inside story of British government: “A strong Prime Minister can be every strong.
He can sometimes commit the Cabinet by acts or words. But he can not habitually or often do so.’’
7.2 The President of the USA, France, Russia, China and
Plural Executive of Switzerland

The President of USA

The most powerful and spectacular office in the American constitutional system is occupied by the
‘Chief Executive’ called the President. A close look at the potentialities of his great office confirms the
view that he exercises ‘largest amount of authority ever wielded by a man in a democracy’. A
substantial change has undergone this great, rather the greatest, office over the course of more than
a hundred years highlighting which Hayman has observed that Presidential powers have so much
increased that now he is the focus of federal authority and the symbol of national unity. The reason
for this should be discovered in remarkable developments in domestic as well as foreign, particularly
the latter, spheres. In 1966 Aaron Wildavsky conducted a survey of Presidential initiative and
Congressional response in both internal and external matters from 1948 to 1964 and came to offer his
striking conclusion that the United States has one President, but two presidencies, one for domestic
affairs and the other for foreign policy. He noted with amazement: “Since World War II, Presidents
have had much greater success in controlling the nation’s defence and foreign policies than in
dominating its domestic policies.”
Term, Succession and Removal: The President is elected by the American people for a term of four
years. The original Constitution was silent on the issue of his re-election. It simply stipulated that the
President would hold office for a term of four years which undoubtedly allowed him indefinite re-
eligibility. However, a practice developed whereby no President till 1940 ever held this office for
more than two terms. In this way, a good tradition started by the earlier Presidents like Washington,
Adams and Jefferson could not be broken by the coming incumbents until Franklin D. Roosevelt won
election on the Democratic ticket for the third term in 1940 and then for a fourth one in 1944. It all
happened against a resolution passed by the American Senate on the question of a third term for
President Coolidge that any departure from the established tradition would be unwise, unpatriotic
nd
and fraught with peril to our free institutions. The result was the 22 constitutional amendment of
1951 which debars a man to seek a third term and makes it clear that the period of the officiating
President shall be counted as one term in case his stay in office exceeds the duration of two years.
We now turn to the important issue of Presidential succession. The original Constitution provides
that if the President vacates his office, the Vice-President shall succeed him and in case both vacate it,
the Congress shall settle the matter by means of a law. Vice-President-elect shall act as the officiating
President until the next President qualifies. However, if both the President-elect and Vice-President-
elect fail to qualify, then the Congress may provide by law as to who shall act as the President until
the new President or Vice-President shall have qualified.
The American Congress adopted a resolution in 1965 which took the form of 25 constitutional
th
amendment two years after. It provides: (1) The Vice-President shall become the President on the

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 163