Could a British monarch refuse royal assent if an act of Parliament was very unpopular? If I understand correctly, Royal Assent is still required for all Acts of Parliament, but is now just a formality and has not been refused for hundreds of years. What if Parliament passed a law that was very unpopular with the people? Would having the support of a large majority of the people affect whether or not the monarch could refuse royal assent?
This would surely be a constitutional crisis in a country where the constitutional order is spread over many separate laws and traditions. The UK is generally accepted as a genuine democracy which has a monarch for reasons of tradition, and which lets the monarch sign some things as head of state which are decided by elected officials. The parliament dominates the crown-in-parliament, for all the ceremonial importance of the monarch. So by this reasoning, the elected officials should win the power struggle. Yet it also retains vestiges of the old order e.g. in the House of Lords. It would come down if the popularity of the monarch's action outweighs the genuine pride of the Brits in their democratic traditions.
In simple terms it was part of a wider effort to consolidate and simplify criminal law referred to as the Criminal Law Consolidation Acts 1861 (which were themselves revisions of the Peel Acts) Basically the sheer number of acts was causing administrative headaches - the courts and parliament were losing track of what was and wasn't in force. Since at least nominally ordinary English folk were supposed to know the law it was getting a bit ridiculous that the people whose literal job it was to make and adjudicate these laws weren't able to! In the words of James Bigg Esq: It would be superfluous to attempt to enumerate the causes which have led to the passing of these statutes : the circumstances which led to their occupying the prominent attention they have received were twofold: ist. The Court of Queen's Bench, a few years since, spent some time in solemnly considering the effect of an act which was afterwards found to have been repealed some years previously, but of which repeal both judges, counsel, solicitors, and all the parties concerned were, at the time, profoundly ignorant, and 2nd, Very nearly at the same period an act was formally passed by Parliament to repeal several acts which had been actually repealed about 20 years previously. As it is a legal axiom that every Englishman is presumed to know the laws of his country, and as the preposterous proceedings just mentioned cast a grave suspicion before the eyes of the public upon the accuracy and extent of the knowledge even of judges and legislators, it was felt that some means ought to be adopted to determine with clearness and precision what laws were really in force and what were abrogated : hence arose the question of “Statute Law Reform,” which for many years has received the intermittent attention of the legislature, and been handled by commissions of inquiry almost innumerable and uniformly expensive. PS: If you're interested in the general topic of how these acts came to be and the legal environment at the time it's well worth reading the whole &quot;Preface&quot; section of the book I linked to above.
It seems to me that some commentators/articles have inadvertently conflated different legislation and a recent event involving the seizure of equipment from protester Steve Bray in Parliament Square. Some articles about Steve Bray have named or otherwise referred to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 without an explanation of any link between that person and this law - to me there is no link in the context of Bray's equipment seizure (the police may have mentioned other newer powers to Bray). Among other things, section 143 of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 (as amended) explicitly prohibits the unauthorised use of &quot;amplified noise equipment&quot; (including but not limited to loudspeakers and loudhailers) within Parliament Square and (the amendment) &quot;the Palace of Westminster controlled area&quot;. Westminster Council provides a map in pdf format of the respective areas: Appendix to Protocol for enforcement of provisions in relation to noise nuisance in the vicinity of Parliament. Before the PRSRA 2011, sections 137 and 138 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 gave the Home Secretary the power to prohibit the unauthorised use of &quot;loudspeakers&quot; in &quot;designated areas&quot; no more than one kilometre around Parliament Square. Part 3 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 amends the Public Order Act 1986 in relation to &quot;public processions and public assemblies&quot;, including clauses related to &quot;noise&quot;. Section 78 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 abolished the common law offence of public nuisance and created the statutory offence of &quot;intentionally or recklessly causing public nuisance&quot;. This more recent legislation has been criticised in relation to protests generally (not solely those that involve megaphones), e.g. by the Joint Committee on Human Rights its witnesses in their scrutiny of the-then Bill. Quote: The Bill introduces a new statutory offence of “intentionally or recklessly causing public nuisance” which was previously an offence at common law. There is a wide range of non-violent conduct that may be caught by the statutory offence, which potentially criminalises some forms of peaceful protest. The offence carries a maximum sentence of 12 months if tried summarily and 10 years if tried on indictment. A person can also be issued with a fine.77 A number of our witnesses raised concerns about the impact of these changes and its compatibility with Articles 10 and 11 of the ECHR. We share some of those concerns. In summary the explicit prohibition of &quot;amplified noise equipment&quot; is limited to Parliament Square and &quot;the Palace of Westminster controlled area&quot; but one can easily imagine the police claiming that a protester's use of a megaphone is a public nuisance.
There's no law as such; it's just an age-old mark of respect that a visiting Royal not sit on your throne. The Queen has encountered other royal families so it makes sense that she'd know this tradition, and was likely just being humorous on the Game of Thrones set. That or she decided the Iron Throne didn't look very comfy!
This is known as a retroactive or ex post facto law. Such laws are explicitly forbidden by the US Constitution (Wikipedia reference), and are generally frowned on in jurisdictions where the rule of law applies, partly because it is difficult to prove criminal intent when your action was not at the time criminal.
You have to distinguish between the Tory party and the UK parliament. The UK parliament just had a vote of no confidence against Theresa May and lost. Had they won, parliament would have had to come up with a different government (for example the same government except for a different PM, or a government formed by the current opposition) that would have a majority to rule, or there would be new elections. The Tory party could legally do lots of things, but they are bound by their party rules. They had a vote of no confidence against Theresa May maybe a month or so ago, and she won. According to the Tory party rules, there cannot be another such vote for one year, so right now and for the next eleven months, they can't replace her. If that vote a month ago had not happened, they could. But that is all not because of some law, but because of the rules this party set for itself.
No Always assuming that the government has operated within the limits of its powers or, at least, that if they have exceeded those powers the excess was in good faith. First, there is the issue of sovereign immunity. Basically, a government can be held liable only when it consents to be held liable. Most governments never waive this with respect to their lawmaking powers because they have to be able to make laws in what they see as the public interest without fear of litigation. See, for example, cases on plain paper packaging of cigarettes. Second, most governments have the power to regulate commerce and to deal with public emergencies. There is an issue which comes up in Federations about which government has the power but even if a law is invalid, it does not follow that compensation is payable. It certainly isn’t if the law is valid.
The change in the royal title came about following the Imperial Conference of 1926, when the various governments of the Empire agreed that &quot;the group of self-governing communities composed of Great Britain and the Dominions&quot; were &quot;autonomous Communities ... equal in status&quot;. The Conference declined to pursue developing any kind of Imperial Constitution, preferring instead to draw out a few specific consequences of that agreement. In the Balfour Declaration, section IV(a) asks for legislation to change the King's title. There is also a longer discussion in V(a) about treaties, which affects the examples that you give in the question. Both of your 1930 examples follow the recommendations in this Declaration. The convention on conflict of nationality laws is entered into by the King, with the governments of his realms separately represented and enumerated. It lists two plenipotentiaries &quot;For Great Britain and Northern Ireland&quot;. The omission of &quot;the United Kingdom of&quot; is not material, much like talking about &quot;the Kingdom of Sweden&quot; versus just &quot;Sweden&quot;. The agreement on Bulgarian financial obligations is between the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and various other governments. They both refer to Northern Ireland rather than Ireland but differ in form because they use the different structures of a treaty between sovereigns and an agreement between governments. As noted in the Declaration, prior usage was not always obvious to interpret, because of confusion about whether (say) Canada was meant to be bound by a treaty entered into in the name of the King of Great Britain. Likewise, R v. Jameson [1896] 2 QB 425 is an important case on extent of legislation to British possessions - in the past, it was not always explicit whether an Act was for the UK only, and this had to be deduced from context. In debate on the 1927 Act in the Commons, the Home Secretary Sir William Joynson-Hicks (as he then was) said: It is clear that it is a misnomer to continue to talk of &quot;The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.&quot; Quite obviously, since Southern Ireland has been granted Dominion Home Rule, there is no such thing as &quot;The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland,&quot; but there is still &quot;The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.&quot; Consequently, after full consultation and interviews with the representatives of Northern Ireland, with the Government of Northern Ireland, it has been decided to ask the House to alter the title of Parliament- and to make it &quot;The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.&quot; and: Certain portions of Ireland have, as it were, slipped out of the United Kingdom, and we now call it the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but it is still the United Kingdom, and this is still the Thirty-fourth Parliament of the United Kingdom. It is clear that he - on behalf of the government - saw the Act as sufficient to change anything already defined in statute which needed to be changed. (It was also debated whether the Great Seal needed to be renamed as well, etc.) The change to the name of the country did not need statutory authorization in contexts where the old name was not required by statute. Diplomatic formulae are not statutory and so aren't mentioned here; the royal prerogative is already enough for the treaty language to be as envisaged going forward. British passports also changed in 1927 to using &quot;United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland&quot; in place of &quot;and Ireland&quot;. At the time, passport issuing was entirely on the basis of the royal prerogative, without any legislative regime. Various other official publications, like statistical reports, used the new name going forward. Some other provisions in the Declaration were given effect in the Statute of Westminster 1931. This should be seen as part of a continuing effort to let the legal situation follow the policy (Commonwealth nations are equal autonomous peers) which itself followed the facts on the ground (the UK government could no longer expect to rule them directly). So there was not precisely a &quot;flag day&quot; when the UK's name changed, but there was a process of recognizing that the name ought to change, some wrangling over how, and the fairly rapid implementation of the change in 1927, at least on the part of the UK government itself.