Westminster system

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Palace of Westminster with Victoria Tower (left) and Elizabeth Tower with Big Ben

The Westminster system , in relevant English literature Westminster system , Westminster model or in German literature also called Westminster Democracy , is a parliamentary system of government that was formed in the 13th century in the Kingdom of England and developed over the centuries and is one of the oldest parliamentary systems Systems of the world applies.

Influences of the British Westminster system can be found everywhere in other countries of the world where the British view of parliamentarism, either directly or indirectly, as a former British colony, has been willingly or inherited. The Westminster system is still used today in a more or less modified form in most of the Commonwealth of North and Central America , Asia , Australia , New Zealand and some states in Oceania .

Origin of name

House of Commons 1851

The term Westminster system or Westminster model refers to a form of government that was developed in England from the 13th century. It got its name from the Palace of Westminster , which the district Westminster in London is located and in which the two chambers of the British Parliament , the House of Commons (lower house) and the House of Lords (the upper house), are based. The term is still used to denote the UK's political and parliamentary system.

Outlines of the British Westminster System

Although there is still no generally valid description or definition of the Westminster system , some basic institutional features of the system can be described.

  1. The Westminster system, modeled on the British, does not have a single document summarized constitution. Constituent elements are scattered across many laws in the country, are defined by case law, or simply arose from traditional practice. Laws and thus constituent elements can be changed with a simple majority in parliament. With the exception of the United Kingdom and New Zealand, all other countries that have adopted the Westminster system today have a written constitution that can only be changed by a higher-defined majority than the simple majority.
  2. In the British Westminster system, Parliament has two chambers, the House of Commons , whose representatives are directly elected by the people and which has legislative power, and the House of Lords , which has suspensive veto power and in which persons appointed by the Crown ( Lords ) and bishops appointed by the Church of England . The representative of the crown is part of parliament but has no right to vote.
  3. The head of state is usually a hereditary monarch and primarily has representative functions, but the power to govern lies with the head of the executive. With his signature, the head of state gives legal force to law and opens the new session of parliament by reading out the government program.
  4. The government consists of the prime minister, the cabinet with its ministers and other ministers without cabinet rank and is accountable to parliament. In addition, the government ministers must be members of parliament.
  5. Political power is concentrated in a collective cabinet that is accountable to parliament. The cabinet, which meets once a week for political deliberations, forms the government's “core team” and consists of the prime minister and around 20 ministers. Ministers are required to fully represent the government's policies and defend them vis-à-vis parliament and the public. Walter Bagehot describes in his book The English Constitution that the secret of the effectiveness of the English constitution lies in the almost complete amalgamation of the executive and legislative powers and the link between them is the cabinet. He describes the cabinet as a kind of "secret committee" in which no minutes of the meetings are made and no information about the contents of the meeting is leaked out.
  6. In contrast to a federal system, the legislative power is organized centrally. In the British system, Scotland , Wales and Northern Ireland have had their own parliament since 1998 , each with its own rights, but decisive political power remained in London .
  7. There is only a simple majority system in the UK general election system. Accordingly, the person who has won a simple majority of the votes in an electoral district is elected. The system favors larger parties. Minorities have no chance of being politically represented in parliament. The right to vote for everyone was not introduced until 1832. Women were not allowed to vote until 1918, but only if they were over 30 years old. In 1928 their right to vote was reduced to 21 years and it was not until the People Act 1949 that universal suffrage was introduced.
  8. For a long time Great Britain, favored by its majority electoral system, was known for its two-party system, in which the two parties differed from each other from a socio-economic point of view. The majority party was the government and the second largest party was the opposition. That this no longer applies unreservedly was shown by the 2010 election at the latest , in which the Conservative Party no longer found a majority and had to form a government coalition with the Liberal Democrats . The Labor Party was the opposition at the time.
  9. Recognition of the Rule of Law , in which everyone is equal before the law, the law protects against arbitrariness and rights arise from jurisdiction, is an essential foundation of civil rights and is part of the Westminster system.
  10. The independence of the judiciary was first introduced with the Act of Settlement 1701 . Before that, unpopular judges could be deposed by the king. The law stipulated that high court judges were given their office for life and could only be removed from office by a decision of the two houses of parliament in agreement with the crown. This has never happened since.

Variants of the Westminster system

Variants of the Westminster system can be found in the following states:

Europe

  • Ireland is a republic with a President as head of state. It has a two-chamber parliament, whereby in contrast to the British parliament the members of the upper house ( Seanad Éireann ) are elected indirectly by a majority, six members by the graduates from the two universities and 43 members by social groups from culture, education, agriculture, Unions, industry and commerce and public administration. 11 members are appointed by the Prime Minister. The House of Lords, also known as the Senate, only has legislative tasks and has no influence on finances, parliamentary elections or the dissolution of the government.

middle East

North and Central America

Africa

Asia

  • Bangladesh
  • During its time as a colony of the United Kingdom, India got the British Westminster system in place in a series of five constitutional reforms between 1861 and 1935 . After its independence in 1947, India adopted a constitution based on the Westminster system in 1950. Deviating from the British system, India became a republic with a president as head of state and gave itself a federal structure with today 28 states and nine union territories. The House of Lords, called Rajya Sabha , differs from the British model and consists of elected representatives from the states and the Union territories. Common law applies in India . The weakness in the Indian Westminster adaptation is that the Westminster system is ideally designed for a homogeneous society, but due to its concentration of power in the executive, in deeply divided societies with great ethnic, religious and cultural differences like in India, the social one Problems even worse.

Australia and Oceania

See also

literature

  • Westminster Legacies . Democracy and Responsible Government in Asia and Pacific . University of New South Wales Press , Sydney 2005, ISBN 0-86840-848-4 (English).
    • RAW Rhodes, Patrick Weller : Westminster Transplanted and Westminster Implanted: Exploring Political Change . In: Westminster Legacies . 2005, p. 1-12 .
    • Haig Patapan, John Wanna : The Westminster Legacy: Conclusion . In: Westminster Legacies . 2005, p. 242-255 .
  • Simon James : British Cabinet Government . 2nd Edition. Routledge , London 1999, ISBN 0-415-17977-7 (English).
  • RK Mosley : Westminster Workshop . A Student Guide to British Government . 5th edition. Pergamon Press , Oxford 1985, ISBN 0-08-031834-7 (English).
  • John P. Mackintosh : The Government and Politics of Britain . 4th edition. Hutchinson & Co , London 1977, ISBN 0-09-131341-4 (English).
  • Herman Finer : The Major Government of Modern Europe . 2nd Edition. Harper & Row Publishers , New York 1962, LCCN  60-014418 (English).
  • Walter Bagehot : The English Constitution . Ed .: Wilhelm Hennis, Hans Maier (=  Politica . Volume 33 ). Luchterhand, Neuwied 1971 (English: The English Constitution (2nd Edition) 1872. Translated by Klaus Streifthau, first publication of the English edition in 1867).
  • Janine Hayward (Ed.): New Zealand Government and Politics . 6th edition. Oxford University Press , Melbourne 2015, ISBN 978-0-19-558525-4 (English).
  • Clements Juergenmeyer: India: A Westminster Model of Democracy? . In: Ajay K. Mehra, Gert W. Kueck (Eds.): The Indian Parliament: A Comparative Perspective . Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, New Delhi 2003, ISBN 81-220-0654-X (English, archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de [PDF; 1,3 MB ; accessed on June 19, 2015]).
  • Muiris MacCarthaigh : Accountability in Irish Parliamentary Politics . Institute of Public Administration , Dublin 2005, ISBN 978-1-904541-31-8 (English).
  • David Hamer : Can Responsible Government Survive In Australia? . The Department of the Senate Parliament House , Canberra, Australia 2004, ISBN 0-642-71433-9 (English, aph.gov.au [PDF; 3.2 MB ; accessed on December 25, 2015]).

Further literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rhodes, Weller : Westminster Transplanted and Westminster Implanted: Exploring Political Change . In: Westminster Legacies . 2005, p.  2 .
  2. ↑ Parliament Brief: What is Parliament? . New Zealand Parliament , March 21, 2014, accessed June 15, 2015 .
  3. ↑ Patapan, Wanna : The Westminster Legacy: Conclusion . In: Westminster Legacies . 2005, p.  242 f .
  4. ^ Westminster System . Australia Politics , accessed June 15, 2015 .
  5. ↑ Patapan, Wanna : The Westminster Legacy: Conclusion . In: Westminster Legacies . 2005, p.  244 .
  6. ^ A b Richard Shaw : The Westminster Tradition . In: Janine Hayward (Ed.): New Zealand Government and Politics . 6th edition. Oxford University Press , Melbourne 2015, ISBN 978-0-19-558525-4 , pp.  358 (English).
  7. ^ Mackintosh : The Government and Politics of Britain . 1977, p.  11 .
  8. ^ Mosley : Westminster Workshop . 1985, p.  3-5 .
  9. ^ How government works . Government UK , accessed June 15, 2015 .
  10. ^ David Hamer : Can Responsible Government Survive In Australia? . 2004, Part 1 - The origins of responsible government , p.  3–20 (English, online [accessed December 25, 2015]).
  11. ↑ Bagehot : The English Constitution (translation) . 1971, p.  53, 55 .
  12. ↑ Bagehot : The English Constitution (translation) . 1971, p.  55 f .
  13. ^ Devolution of powers to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland . Government UK , accessed June 15, 2015 .
  14. ^ Finer : The Major Government of Modern Europe . 1962, p.  66-67 .
  15. ^ Mosley : Westminster Workshop . 1985, p.  12-13 .
  16. ^ Mosley : Westminster Workshop . 1985, p.  15 .
  17. ↑ Seanad Éireann . House of the Oireachtas , accessed June 19, 2015 .
  18. ^ MacCarthaigh : Accountability in Irish Parliamentary Politics . 2005, p.  50 .
  19. ^ Robert W. Stern : India's Westminster System . In: Westminster Legacies . 2005, p.  152 .
  20. ↑ Juergen Meyer: India: A Westminster Model of Democracy? . In: The Indian Parliament: A Comparative Perspective . 2003, p. 42 .
  21. ↑ Juergen Meyer: India: A Westminster Model of Democracy? . In: The Indian Parliament: A Comparative Perspective . 2003, p. 43-44 .
  22. ^ John Wanna : New Zealand's Westminster Trajectory: Archetypal Transplant to Maverick Outlier . In: Westminster Legacies . 2005, p.  152 .
  23. ^ Neill Atkinson : 1.2 New Zealand Politics 1935 to 1984 . In: New Zealand Government and Politics . 2015, p.  17 .
  24. ↑ Kenneth Keith : On the Constitution of New Zealand: An Introduction to the Foundations of the Current Form of Government . Cabinet Office , 2008, accessed June 18, 2015 .