Istituzioni, storia e cultura della lingua inglese - British Institutions

British institutions

The English Parliament was too large to rule the country. Parliament had limited power against the monarch, that it controlled the Parliament and summoned it when they needed to raise the money.

The constitution

The British constitution is an unwritten constitution and it is based on important documents such as the Magna Carta, which contains limitations to the King's power, case law, customs, and conventions. It consists of two important principles: the rule of law and the supremacy of Parliament.

The constitutional safeguard of the separations of power

• Legislature: the two Houses of Parliament, which makes law
• Executive: the Government, which plans policy and puts laws into effect
• Judiciary, which decides cases arising out of law

The supreme legislative authority is the Parliament.

UK Parliament: role, legislation, and elections

Britain’s Parliament is one of the oldest representative assemblies in the world. It is made up of the monarch, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons. The three elements meet together only on important ceremonial occasions such as coronations. A Parliament has a maximum duration of five years, except in emergency situations. A dissolution of Parliament is ordered by the monarch on the advice of the Prime Minister.

British parliamentary government is based on a two-chamber system:

• The House of Lords (the upper House). It consists of Lords Temporal and Lords Spiritual and it is presided over by the Lord Chancellor.
• The House of Commons (the lower House). It comprises 650 members of parliament, representing one of the 650 geographical areas into which the country is divided for electoral purposes.

They are elected by voters and represent citizens in Parliament. Today the center of parliamentary power is the popularly elected House of Commons. The Parliament Act 1911 imposed restrictions on the Lords’ right to delay Bills dealing with expenditure or taxation and limited their power over other legislation to dealing Bills for 2 years. These limitations to the power of the House of Lords are based on the belief that the principal legislative function of the modern House of Lords is revision and that its object is to complement the House of Commons and not to rival it.

The House of Commons meets most weekday afternoons. The Speaker is the chief officer of the House of Commons. The Speaker is an elected MP who ceases to be a political representative and becomes a neutral official. The Speaker protects the House against any abuse of procedure by controlling debates and votes.

In the British electoral system, the country is divided into 650 single-member constituencies (college uninominali).