Reading 1

What's in a name?

Extraordinary though it seems, people in this country are genuinely confused about its name. Some say Britain or occasionally, if they are feeling patriotic, Great Britain. Customs officers and economists call it the UK. This presents a linguistic problem, as there is no adjective form. English people quite often forget all about their important neighbors and call it England.

«This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle…This other Eden, demi-paradise… This precious stone set in the silver sea…This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,» says John of Gaunt in Shakespeare's play Richard II.

If England was an island, where were Scotland and Wales at the time – under water? Then there is the nice general term which TV weather presenters like to use, the British Isles. But this one worries the Irish: does it include them as one of the «isles»?

The full name of the country is, of course, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Very briefly indeed, the history is as follows. Wales was merged with England by King Henry VIII in 1543. Scotland followed with the Act of Union in 1707, after which the country was known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain. The Act of Ireland in 1801 united Britain and Ireland, but that unhappy union finally broke up in 1921, with only six mainly Protestant counties in the north of Ireland remaining in the UK. This remains the situation today.

An Unwritten Constitution

While the shape of the country changed, the system of government also developed and transformed itself. Henry VIII was an autocratic medieval-style monarch, with very few limits on his power. Today, Britain has a monarch but within a parliamentary democracy. The transformation is (almost) complete. But, in contrast with almost every other country in the world, no dramatic event in British history has resulted in a written constitution.

In 1649, after a long and terrible civil war against Parliament, King Charles I was beheaded. There was then a period of republican government knows as the Commonwealth. Surprisingly, the monarchy later re-established itself, although things would never be quite the same again. The Habeas Corpus act of 1679 guaranteed certain basic freedoms for the citizen. In 1689, a Bill of rights established Parliament as the central body of government. In the 19^th century a number of Reform acts gave the vote to more and more of the male population; in 1928, this was finally extended to all women over 21. Other laws were passed to limit the length of parliaments and the power of the House of Lords.

These laws, however, have never been brought together into a single document. In fact, some aspects of the system are not even covered by laws, but rather by custom and practice. So it is often said that Britain has an unwritten constitution. It exists; but not as a document, but rather as a subject to be studied.

Discussion

- Do the names of counties cause any problems in your part of the world?

- Has your country got a written constitution? Describe the constitution of your country.

Reading 2

The Monarchy

By far the strangest feature of the system is the role of the monarch. The Queen appears on paper to have tremendous power, but in fact has hardly any at all. The country is a kingdom, the government is Her Majesty's Government, laws are made by the Queen in Parliament, criminals are tried in the name of the Queen, and the Queen is the head of state. She dissolves Parliament before an election and she appoints the new Prime Minister (PM); she has a business meeting with the PM once a week, usually on Tuesdays; at the annual State Opening of Parliament she makes the queen's Speech, which outlines the government's plans. She is the head of the Commonwealth (which includes 51 countries and a quarter of the world's population), and she is actually Head of State in 16 countries including Canada, Papua New Guinea and Jamaica. All this seems to add up to a dominant role within the system. But it does not: the key word here is a symbolic.

The American President is both head of the government and head of state. This is also the case in France and in Russian, while in most countries around the world these two roles are separate. The all-but-powerless, ceremonial head of state is most commonly a president, but in a few places such as Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and the UK, the job is done by a king or queen. Queen Elizabeth signs all the new laws that are presented to her; she cannot pick and choose. She appoints the leader of the majority party as Prime Minster, automatically. The Queen's Speech is in fact written for her by the government. Any power she may have is strictly personal: if PMs respect her opinion on something (such as the Commonwealth, on which she is an expert), they will take her advice. Constitutionally, she has the right only, «to be consulted, to encourage, and to warn.»

Reading 3

The Separation of Powers

In the USA the constitution enforces a strict separation between the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. Britain has some separation but not very much. The legal system is independent to a large degree: although the government of the day appoints judges, it cannot interfere with their work and it cannot get rid of those appointed by the previous government. But the executive and the legislature are not separate at all: in fact, the former is part of the latter. The law-making body is Parliament – the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The Commons is made up of all the Members of Parliament (MPs) chosen by election – about 650 of them. Within that there is the majority party, and within the majority party there is a group of ministers who are the government. The leader of the majority party is the head of the government, the Prime Minister.

Discussion

- Why do some countries have a strict separation of powers? Is it a good thing?

Date: 2015-06-11; view: 463; Нарушение авторских прав