Can a parliamentary government dissolve itself? The United States has a constitution with a separation of powers keeping it from becoming a dictatorship. What about countries with a single-housed parliment without a constitution (such as Israel[1])? If a party would win 61% of the parliament, can they just legally cancel the next election? [1]: Even though Israel has "basic laws", they are legally the same as all other laws and don't require a "super-majority" or anything like that. And even if it did, the US has a much harder time amending the constitution.
You can certainly do so: it's been done many times in the past, and can be done even with a written constitution. The most recent famous example that I know of would be how the Nazi party used the Enabling Act, 1933 and Reichstag Fire Decree, 1933 to amend the constitution by essentially neutering all the safeguards, and used force to ensure that they could stay in power. Julius Caesar's reforms follow in a similar vein. For someone to successfully force change like this, you generally need a political system that is unstable and has no strong (or at least effective) checks and balances. Additionally, you need the support of the military because otherwise they will generally support the existing structure. Other less extreme examples I can think of where a system has changed to another system would be former colonies adopting new constitutions (e.g. Ireland and Pakistan), or where there has been significant change in the country's model (e.g. South Africa). Again, you need support, but this time it is within the existing political and judicial framework.
Historically, this was true in the Icelandic Commonwealth in the Middle Ages, and in some democratic Greek city-states in the classical era. Similarly, in non-democratic feudal regimes, the lord or monarch was both the law giver and sitting in court was also the arbiter of all disputes arising under the lord's own laws. In places like Saudi Arabia where the monarchy's power is more than symbolic, the system still works this way to a significant extent. The practical reality in most one party Communist states is similar. In the United Kingdom, historically, the Appellate committee of the House of Lords (staffed by a subset of aristocrats usually appointed for life by the Prime Minister to the post) was the highest court of appeal of other courts in the British Commonwealth (with the Judicial committee of the Privy Council handling final appeals from outside Britain), and it was also a court of original jurisdiction for certain criminal cases against other aristocrats to satisfy the Magna Carta's notion that one is entitled to a jury of one's peers. Top level general purpose legislatures rarely serve as courts at the highest level, except in very isolated political matters. A good example of narrow quasi-judicial legislative power is the power of the Congress in the U.S., to be the ultimate judge for Congressional election disputes and of some Presidential election disputes. Congress also has quasi-judicial jurisdiction over impeachments of government employees whether or not they are elected, and over expulsions for cause of its own members and over other ethical sanctions of its own members. Many other legislatures have some sort of quansi-judicial impeachment and/or explusion power exercised as a whole by by some committee within it. It is common in the United States for administrative agencies, within their narrow area of competence to exercise both quasi-legislative power to enact regulations with a broad mandate in a subject area, and also to have quasi-judicial power in that same subject area. The Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, the Internal Revenue Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Merit System Protection Board, for example, all operate in this fashion to some extent. Likewise, it is very common at the local government level for a city council and its planning board to carry out both legislative roles and quasi-judicial role when disputes come up regarding its land use regulations. Similarly, school boards routinely both establish employment regulations and other school rules, and serve in a quasi-judicial role with respect employee discipline or termination, and with respect to student discipline. This dual role is also common for the boards of other public institutions like hospitals and state colleges, and for private non-profit organizations. A recent example in that kind of situation is Colorado's State School Board which both exercises legislative power over when charter schools (i.e. public schools not under the direct supervision of any elected local school board) may be formed, and has the ultimate and final judicial review role over decisions by local school boards to grant or deny school charters.
No Even if there were any evidence that any member of the US government were involved (there isn’t), that is a matter for the US justice system. The US is not a member of the International Criminal Court so no Supra-National body has jurisdiction.
Canada Short version: In the mid-'90s, a Supreme Court decision and an Act of Parliament clarified the legal process under which a province could secede from Canada. While unilateral secession need not be recognized, the Canadian government would be obliged to negotiate the secession of a province following a sufficiently clear referendum result. Long version: Since around the mid-20th century, there has been an active sovereigntist movement in the province of Quebec, and a sovereigntist party (the Parti Québecois, or PQ) has formed the provincial government in Quebec a few times. The PQ has twice held referendums on whether Quebec should separate from Canada. The first referendum, in 1980, was soundly defeated; but the second referendum, in 1995, was defeated by a margin of only about 1% of the votes cast. The question in this second referendum was criticized by the federalist movement as being rather confusing and convoluted. It also later emerged that the PQ government at the time had planned to unilaterally declare independence if the sovereigntist option had won, even at a 50% + 1 level. In response to these events, two major events occurred which greatly clarified the legal and political circumstances under which a province would be &quot;allowed&quot; to secede from Canada. First, in Reference re: Secession of Quebec, the Supreme Court of Canada found that according to principles of both Canadian and international law, a province does not have the right to unilaterally secede; but they also found that the federal government is obliged to negotiate secession after a vote in favor of separation. [As an aside, the discussion in the Reference re: Secession of Quebec concerning the various issues at play is broadly applicable to any separatist movement, and the decision is worth reading if you want to delve into this more.] Second, the Parliament of Canada passed the Clarity Act, which more clearly laid out the conditions under which the government of Canada would recognize a secession vote. The provisions of the Clarity Act are as follows: Giving the House of Commons the power to decide whether a proposed referendum question was considered clear before the public vote; Specifically stating that any question not solely referring to secession was to be considered unclear; Giving the House of Commons the power to determine whether or not a clear majority had expressed itself following any referendum vote, implying that some sort of supermajority is required for success; Stating that all provinces and the First Nations were to be part of the negotiations; Allowing the House of Commons to override a referendum decision if it felt the referendum violated any of the tenets of the Clarity Act; The secession of a province of Canada would require an amendment to the Constitution of Canada. Taken together, the Supreme Court decision and the Clarity Act present a relatively clear legal &amp; political path by which a Canadian province could secede. However, in the original question you ask Is there any sovereign country which currently has a law which would allow an arbitrary part of its territory to declare independence on its own if a majority of that territory is in favor? (bolding mine). If by &quot;on its own&quot; you mean &quot;unilaterally, without negotiation&quot;, then strictly speaking this does not apply to Canada; a negotiation process and a constitutional amendment would also be required in the wake of a secession vote. Reference re: Secession of Quebec specifically bars a unilateral declaration of independence. Ironically (or perhaps because of these measures), support for sovereignty in Quebec has fallen significantly since 1995, and multiple splinter parties have formed out of the PQ. It therefore seems unlikely that the provisions of the Clarity Act will be tested in the near future.
From Roberts' dissenting opinion: Although the policy arguments for extending marriage to same-sex couples may be compelling, the legal arguments for requiring such an extension are not. The fundamental right to marry does not include a right to make a State change its definition of marriage. And a State’s decision to maintain the meaning of marriage that has persisted in every culture throughout human history can hardly be called irrational. In short, our Constitution does not enact any one theory of marriage. The people of a State are free to expand marriage to include same-sex couples, or to retain the historic definition. (The Due Process Clause is not a guarantee of every right that should inhere in an ideal system.) In my opinion, this quote speaks as much to the second question as the first. Assume (hypothetically) for a moment that question one was not at issue. If a state defined marriage as only between opposite sexes, and the right to make a state change its definition of marriage is not in the Supreme Court's purview (in our hypo), then the state is as free to reject the validity of marriages abhorrent to its laws, performed elsewhere, as it is to deny the right to marry under its theory of marriage.
It is quite likely that a constitutional amendment was (and is) not needed to ban alcohol. For example, if the Controlled Substances Act is constitutional (and I have no reason to believe it isn't) then alcohol could be added to it tomorrow and it could be removed the day after tomorrow. Right there is the reason that you choose to use a constitutional amendment - it is as hard to reverse as it was to enact; it needs another constitutional ammendment.
Art. 1 Sect 5 of the Constitution empowers both houses to make their own rules. That means that they can articulate rules regarding what or how you can talk on the floor. It is held that the president of the senate can issue a ruling, and the ruling can be overridden by majority vote. If the Constitution were amended to be more specific about rules of conduct, then some such Senate rules might be unconstitutional and SCOTUS could invalidate the rule. The only specific constitutional requirement on conducting business is that a majority constitutes a quorum.
Yes. The leading case relevant to the question is Missouri v. Holland, 252 U.S. 416 (1920), in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that a self-executing bird migration treaty could override state law. It is also well established that a treaty may override a previously enacted federal statute. While there might be a requirement that the treaty not be a sham that really doesn't involve another county, or otherwise have an international component, as a practical matter, meeting this requirement is something that would almost always be possible. So, the President and a two-thirds majority of the Senate, in cooperation with a foreign country, by treaty, can accomplish legislative ends with which the House would not agree. As a practical matter, however, the two-thirds majority requirement for passage of a treaty in the Senate, the partisan organization of politics in the U.S., and the correlation of the partisan makeup of the Senate and the House, means that this observation is basically an irrelevant footnote. No treaty that could secure bipartisan support by two-thirds of U.S. Senators, and also be signed by the President, would not be able to be passed in the House. There has never been a time in U.S. history where one political faction has a two-thirds majority in the Senate and another political faction had a majority in the House. As a practical matter, it is almost always easier to pass ordinary legislation approved by majorities in the House and Senate, than it is to pass a self-executing treaty. The only scenario I could image where this might happen would be one in which an &quot;old guard&quot; President and Senate are in place, and then one election, some new political movement suddenly nearly sweeps the House and the U.S. Senate seats that are open due to some pivotal historic event, but there hasn't been more than a single Senate election or a Presidential election since that sea change in public opinion, something that very rarely has happened in other countries.