Executive Uk Government - Constitutional Law

• Makes decisions by which society is governed

• Implements public policy across the range of areas for which it is responsible

• Area it is responsible for is neither static nor fixed

• Distinctive role in two senses

  • Responsible for running the country

  • Only branch that is an initiative-taker (by introduction of policies, and by the responsibility of reaction to unforeseeable events), the dominant institution to which the other branches react

• UK Central government is a large institution

  • Peopled by government ministers, civil servants, headed by PM

  • Organized into several departments, headed by Ministers ('Secretaries of State') and peopled by civil servant

    • Besides departments there are also other public bodies such as HM Prison Service, Environment Agency etc.

• In UK law, executive is extra-legal, law doesn’t condemn it, but doesn’t recognise it either

  • Only separate departments (like ministries) are legally recognized, no legal concept of executive as a whole

  • This is due to historical context and development of uncodified constitution; British only recognize executive as the crown.

• In formal constitutional terms, Queen possesses executive powers to appoint PMs, dissolve parliament, grant royal assent, etc.

  • In practice, such actions are not carried out by monarch personally but by elected politicians.

• ‘Crown in Parliament’, ‘Her Majesty’s government’, ‘Ministers of the Crown’, the ‘Royal Courts of Justice’, the ‘royal prerogative’, and ‘royal assent’.

  • The language of public law has not kept pace with the evolution of modern executive power in democratic times

• Executive and legislative are fused to a degree; leader of the party with the most chairs in parliament is appointed as Prime Minister

  • It is common for an election to produce a parliament without any absolute majority

• Parliament plays two roles in regards to the government; it sustains it with power while also scrutinising it and holding it accountable

• Executive introduces policies as bills to parliament

  • In theory, this means executive is limited by parliaments scrutiny

    • However, in the reality whereby the government has most of the seats in parliament, it is often able to pass legislation easily. This is described as an elective dictatorship

Why the executive finds itself...