Canada is a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system. A significant difference between Canadian and Australian government is that Canada has an appointed Senate unlike Australia's which is elected. The Governor-General appoints the Canadian Senate from recommendations by the Prime Minister. Canada is a federal system and has a bill of rights known as the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This is entrenched into the Canadian Constitution of 1982. Canada has had a bill of rights since 1960, however, prior to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms it was a statutorial act, not a constitutional one.
So what is the platform of the Canadian Republicans? (more)
In a republican context term limits on the executive and legislative is usually framed from the perspective of liberty. Relatively frequent changes of position stop politicians remaining too long and becoming entrenched in the position and estranged from their electorate and popular will. The balance is to make the changes frequent enough to protect liberty, but infrequent enough to enable competence.
The Killfile argued today for term limits from the perspective of good executive governance. His argument is that leaders who stay too long in parliamentary systems destroy the electoral capability of an opposing party. Maybe we could call it the Menzies effect. (more)
Via Westminster Wisdom, Vino discusses assymetrical devolution of the British political system.
Australia uses the technology of federalism and a written constitution to separate the political responsibilities between the national government and the states.
The British constitution is a mix of practice, convention and statutes over time but until recently there has not been a growing layer of government outside the national parliament in London and the local councils.
The devolution and establishment of Scottish parliament, the Welsh Assembly and Northern Ireland parliament, without the clear cut separations of federalism or confederacy have raised some issues. (more)
Anthony Barnett asked the six candidates for deputy leadership of the British Labour Party their opinion on a written constitution. He got full replies on open democracy. The questions are excellent and the replies, for the most part, are straight forward. (more)
An interesting article in the Independent titled:
Brown may bring in written constitution
. Britain's constitution is a non-written one, unlike America's and Australia's. Britain has non-contiguous acts which make up what would be called a constitution, but they are not in one entrenched or statutory act. A written constitution would bring Britain into line with modern constitutional practice.
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In a crikey article Charles Richardson puzzles at the success of American democracy. Bit silly really, considering that the Washington System is a more modern and fully functional representative democracy than the Westminster form despite the US federating in 1787 and Australia in 1901. Our little mutation grafted as much of the Washington system on as we could to give the clunky old Westminster system some perception of modernity. (more)
Bryan Palmer has
an article on ozpolitics
that what is deemed constitutional is ultimately in the hands of the Judicial and not legislative fiat. The High Court under the doctrine of separation of powers is the highest authority to interpret the Australian constitution. But our Westminster style of constitutional law makes government complex and unknowable from the citizen's point of view. It is a fair expectation, in my opinion, that a constitutional system can be read explicitly by a citizen to understand the limits of their government.
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A common cry is that the judicial, rather than interpreting the constitution, is activist and making judgements that are more legislative than juridical. The judicial is treated as a specialist position and given tenure to hide it away from political or populist influence. Unfortunately the judicial often takes matters into its own interpretive hands and expands the power of those that appoint them.
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I like the idea of the executive cabinet coming from elected parliamentarians. This allows the people to keep the truly repugnant out of, not only parliament, but also cabinet. Yet in these days of ever-increasing social democracy an officious administrator is needed over a politician to keep the reigns on all the spending and ensure that the intended outcomes are met. Neither of these issues addresses the problem of how to structure the executive so that there is strong separation of powers between the arms of government.
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