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Based on my admittedly limited understanding of the UK's particular brand of parliament, the House of Commons is essentially a panel of experts and advisors fro

Based on my admittedly limited understanding of the UK's particular brand of parliament, the House of Commons is essentially a panel of experts and advisors from various fields and they hold little direct legal authority in and of themselves, but they're supposed to be very influential to the people who do. I interpret this as trying to understand the problem better, not prosecute someone, in which case it's not who's-legally-responsible, but who-gets-Facebooks-DNA-and-vision-for-the-future.

lainga 9y ago
Various fields indeed: Contract law, tort law, wills & estates law, corporate law...
bdamm 9y ago
The ignorance displayed in this branch is amazing. I'm assuming you're American so let me use an American metaphor. The UK House of Commons is basically the House of Representatives. They hold enormous direct legal authority.
- TallGuyShort 9y ago
  No I'm South African - but I recently toured Westminster Palace and was told that laws are generally drafted and revised plenty in the House of Commons but are unable to move anything all the way through without the House of Lords at least rubber stamping it. But this inquiry is still information gathering regardless, is it not? It's not of any prosecutorial nature, and it needn't be the actual leader of Facebook's UK entity if they don't believe that the UK entity has a ton of control over Facebook in general in all the ways it affects the UK. edit: Holy shit, downvote storm - if I'm wrong about their legal authority, I'm wrong, but where are the other explanations for why that house is summoning Zuckerberg that contradict mine?
  - abritinthebay 9y ago
    Like the US the UK has two houses to act as a check and balance on each other. One is directly elected (Commons) one isn’t (Lords) though the Lords is somewhat indirectly due to political appointees. The Prine Minister is the leader of the majority Party in the Commons.
  - Silhouette 9y ago
    Our legal and government system isn't directly analogous to, for example, the separation of powers that exists in the US. The House of Commons consists of elected MPs, and forms our primary legislative body. The typical process is for legislation to originate in the Commons where it's brought forward by the government of the day, go through various stages where it bounces back and forth between the Commons and the House of Lords, and then become law when it receives royal assent. The latter is almost entirely a formality these days, and while the Lords can and routinely does propose amendments to laws and can delay laws it isn't happy with, ultimately the Commons can overrule them if it really wants to. Various other possibilities for originating legislation exist, but they are rarer, and the Commons still ultimately wins disagreements if it chooses to. Our administrative/executive government is not independently elected, but rather a Prime Minister is selected to form it. The PM is almost always the leader of a party that can command the support of the Commons, either with an outright majority for their party in its own right or through some sort of coalition or other partnership agreement. Consequently, the PM is usually an MP themselves. They then select, normally from among MPs and Lords, other people to form a Cabinet and take on the various senior positions in the government. In principle, the holders of these posts are all servants of the Crown for traditional reasons, but again that is essentially a formality today. Aside from its direct legislative duties, Parliament (the Commons and Lords) also conducts a lot of work in committees like the one we're talking about today; arguably, this is where most of the real work actually happens, since these committees often provide the detailed scrutiny of new proposed legislation within their field as well, but more generally the work of the committees may guide both legislation and the actions of the government (that is, the executive/administrative element led by the PM). In short, MPs are really the heart of our system of government, and being awkward when a parliamentary committee invites you to attend is not going to end well.
  - ealexhudson 9y ago
    It's the other way around. The House of Lords can correct things, but nothing proceeds on their approval alone. Either House can override the other during normal proceedings, but via the Parliament Act the Commons can exert final say over the Lords. The Commons, while technically not the Sovereign, is the sovereign body here. Being called in front of one of their committees is Serious Business in UK terms.
  - stordoff 9y ago
    > unable to move anything all the way through without the House of Lords at least rubber stamping it Under the Parliament Acts, other than narrow exceptions, the House of Lords can only delay bills. The Commons can pass most legislation without the consent of the Lords. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_Acts_1911_and_1949 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_Acts_1911_and_1949
erpellan 9y ago
The House of Commons closest US analogy is the House of Representatives. So, it's the equivalent of being asked to testify before Congress.
mcjiggerlog 9y ago
This is pretty inaccurate. The House of Commons refers to the main house of parliament which is made up entirely of elected members of parliament (MPs). In this case it is a "select committee", which is a cross-party group of MPs which has been appointed to investigate the case. Committees can also invite special outside advisors to help. Select committees are not criminal investigations; their findings are passed to the government for consideration.
Balero 9y ago
Your description suits the House of Lords better, though is not wholly accurate. The house of commons is the elected body and is by far the most powerful body of UK government. A select committee is a group of people (largely made up of members of the house of commons) with a specific goal in mind. In this case investigating the actions of Cambridge Analytica and Facebook. These findings will then be delivered to the House (of Commons) along with any recommendations. The government has a large influence as to who is on the select group, so normally listens to their advice.
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  Isn't the monarch the most powerful "body" of UK government, in theory at least.
  - qubex 9y ago
    The Sovereign would never risk a showdown with the House of Commons because the latter would win. As such, the Sovereign’s role is largely ceremonial.
    - kazen44 9y ago
      This is pretty much the case for any monarchy in europe these days. In Belgium for instance, the monarch has to sign all legislation into law. For personal reasons, could not sign a abortion bill drafted by the belgium parlement. Because denying to sign the bill directly would results in basically the end of the monarchy, he decided to "resign" for a day, the cabinet assumed his powers, the bill got signed, and he was reinstated again.[0] [0] https://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/05/world/belgian-king-unable-to-sign-abortion-law-takes-day-off.html https://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/05/world/belgian-king-unable...
  - andrewaylett 9y ago
    When viewed in a certain light, maybe. But the monarch's hands are tied by parliament: while in theory the Queen may choose not to assent to a bill put before her, it's widely considered that freedom would be withdrawn if she actually tried to use it. Much of what goes into the sausage-making that is the UK parliamentary system is there by custom, on the one hand because it would be legislatively expensive to modernise; on the other because no-one would ever agree on what to replace it with.
vidarh 9y ago
The House of Commons is, in terms of authority, one of the most powerful parliamentary chambers in the world. Most places there are constitutional limits on what parliament can decide and/or qualified majorities and other constraints needed to change constitutional law. In the UK, a central principle is that parliament is entirely sovereign. That is, parliament is not bound by any law decided by past parliaments, but can revoke or alter any of them (they are bound as long as they let a law stand, though) with a simple majority. While your comment elsewhere that they need things to pass through House of Lords is sort of right, consider that the House of Commons powers are bootstrapped - e.g. the UK Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 severely curtailed the Lords powers, and both were passed as a direct response to the House of Lords being seen as obstructing the House of Commons. The Lords failed to stop both, because they knew in advance of the 1911 act that the government had threatened to simply stuff the Lords full of sympathetic new peers (lords). As such, while the UK has a bicameral system, the Lords exceedingly rarely stop laws, it usually only delay them or cause negotiations over revisions, as if the Commons decide to push something through over the objections of the Lords, they generally get their will, and coupled with the lack of constitutional hindrances, they're more powerful than even most unicameral legislatives. > I interpret this as trying to understand the problem better, not prosecute someone, in which case it's not who's-legally-responsible, but who-gets-Facebooks-DNA-and-vision-for-the-future. This is true. It's not in any way a court proceeding. In this respect it's no different from being summoned to attend an inquiry in any other parliament.
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  >In the UK, a central principle is that parliament is entirely sovereign. // Not entirely sovereign, legally the Sovereign is advised by parliament, the government is hers, and she signs acts in to law according to her whim ... of course the power resides in a delicate balance and the legal situation belies the complexity of the true power structure.
  - vidarh 9y ago
    This is sort of true, but only in extremely limited cases. It is a constitutional convention that the monarch will follow the advice of ministers other than when exercising reserve powers, and ministers have extremely limited constitutional flexibility in terms of advicing the monarch to give assent. The monarchs power to refuse royal assent for bills is not part of the reserve powers other than in very limited circumstances (she can delay assent in the case of "near revolutionary" conditions; she can in theory refuse assent on advice of ministers, last exercised by Queen Anne in 1708; she can refuse assent on bills that directly relate to her reserve powers themselves, or her property). So while on paper she "signs acts into law according to her whim", if she fails to sign laws outside that very narrow scope, she'll have violated a constitutional convention that has been a settled part of UK constitutional law for something like two centuries. This would not just be outrageous, but would be subject to legal challenge, as notably, it has been established since 1611, and not challenged by a monarch since 1688, that the judiciary has the power to restrict the royal prerogative, and the judiciary in the UK has centuries of history of taking a very dim view on monarchs trying to reclaim powers that have been de facto transferred to parliament. Odds are she'd find herself having the power legally stripped from her at best, at worst it'd be the end of the monarchy. In other words, in practice it is legal fiction that this power rests with the monarch - outside of the reserve powers it rests with the monarch only as long as she only exercises them in a ceremonial capacity in line with the wishes of parliament. Even the reserve powers are retained mostly because they are exercised so incredibly rarely (e.g. some of them have not been attempted used for centuries) and/or have very limited effect (e.g. on the rare circumstances where the monarch has exercised her powers to choose whom to appoint as PM in modern history it was accepted because the decisions were in line with parliamentary reality, and because parliament could instantly overthrow said government if it did not agree with the choice), but the reserve powers are at least nominally actual powers that the monarch can with some caution actually exercise and get away with it. The rest of the royal prerogatives are not.
qubex 9y ago
You’re very wrong, but it’s also unpleasant that you are being downvoted so forcibly. The House of Commons is the highest authority in the UK and one of the most powerful and sovereign bodies in the world. I think you were thinking of the House of Lords.
- TallGuyShort 9y ago
  Oh you know what? I think I am thinking of the House of Lords - thanks. My point is more that it's information gathering anyway. There's no reason they have to deal with an official UK representative of the company - they want to speak to whoever they think is really the best insight / strongest influencer. And if that's Zuck and not the CEO of the UK legal entity, it's Zuck they talk to.

lainga 9y ago

Various fields indeed: Contract law, tort law, wills & estates law, corporate law...

bdamm 9y ago

The ignorance displayed in this branch is amazing. I'm assuming you're American so let me use an American metaphor. The UK House of Commons is basically the House of Representatives. They hold enormous direct legal authority.

TallGuyShort 9y ago
No I'm South African - but I recently toured Westminster Palace and was told that laws are generally drafted and revised plenty in the House of Commons but are unable to move anything all the way through without the House of Lords at least rubber stamping it. But this inquiry is still information gathering regardless, is it not? It's not of any prosecutorial nature, and it needn't be the actual leader of Facebook's UK entity if they don't believe that the UK entity has a ton of control over Facebook in general in all the ways it affects the UK. edit: Holy shit, downvote storm - if I'm wrong about their legal authority, I'm wrong, but where are the other explanations for why that house is summoning Zuckerberg that contradict mine?
- abritinthebay 9y ago
  Like the US the UK has two houses to act as a check and balance on each other. One is directly elected (Commons) one isn’t (Lords) though the Lords is somewhat indirectly due to political appointees. The Prine Minister is the leader of the majority Party in the Commons.
- Silhouette 9y ago
  Our legal and government system isn't directly analogous to, for example, the separation of powers that exists in the US. The House of Commons consists of elected MPs, and forms our primary legislative body. The typical process is for legislation to originate in the Commons where it's brought forward by the government of the day, go through various stages where it bounces back and forth between the Commons and the House of Lords, and then become law when it receives royal assent. The latter is almost entirely a formality these days, and while the Lords can and routinely does propose amendments to laws and can delay laws it isn't happy with, ultimately the Commons can overrule them if it really wants to. Various other possibilities for originating legislation exist, but they are rarer, and the Commons still ultimately wins disagreements if it chooses to. Our administrative/executive government is not independently elected, but rather a Prime Minister is selected to form it. The PM is almost always the leader of a party that can command the support of the Commons, either with an outright majority for their party in its own right or through some sort of coalition or other partnership agreement. Consequently, the PM is usually an MP themselves. They then select, normally from among MPs and Lords, other people to form a Cabinet and take on the various senior positions in the government. In principle, the holders of these posts are all servants of the Crown for traditional reasons, but again that is essentially a formality today. Aside from its direct legislative duties, Parliament (the Commons and Lords) also conducts a lot of work in committees like the one we're talking about today; arguably, this is where most of the real work actually happens, since these committees often provide the detailed scrutiny of new proposed legislation within their field as well, but more generally the work of the committees may guide both legislation and the actions of the government (that is, the executive/administrative element led by the PM). In short, MPs are really the heart of our system of government, and being awkward when a parliamentary committee invites you to attend is not going to end well.
- ealexhudson 9y ago
  It's the other way around. The House of Lords can correct things, but nothing proceeds on their approval alone. Either House can override the other during normal proceedings, but via the Parliament Act the Commons can exert final say over the Lords. The Commons, while technically not the Sovereign, is the sovereign body here. Being called in front of one of their committees is Serious Business in UK terms.
- stordoff 9y ago
  > unable to move anything all the way through without the House of Lords at least rubber stamping it Under the Parliament Acts, other than narrow exceptions, the House of Lords can only delay bills. The Commons can pass most legislation without the consent of the Lords. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_Acts_1911_and_1949 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_Acts_1911_and_1949

erpellan 9y ago

The House of Commons closest US analogy is the House of Representatives. So, it's the equivalent of being asked to testify before Congress.

mcjiggerlog 9y ago

This is pretty inaccurate. The House of Commons refers to the main house of parliament which is made up entirely of elected members of parliament (MPs). In this case it is a "select committee", which is a cross-party group of MPs which has been appointed to investigate the case. Committees can also invite special outside advisors to help. Select committees are not criminal investigations; their findings are passed to the government for consideration.

Balero 9y ago

Your description suits the House of Lords better, though is not wholly accurate. The house of commons is the elected body and is by far the most powerful body of UK government. A select committee is a group of people (largely made up of members of the house of commons) with a specific goal in mind. In this case investigating the actions of Cambridge Analytica and Facebook. These findings will then be delivered to the House (of Commons) along with any recommendations. The government has a large influence as to who is on the select group, so normally listens to their advice.

pbhjpbhj 9y ago
Isn't the monarch the most powerful "body" of UK government, in theory at least.
- qubex 9y ago
  The Sovereign would never risk a showdown with the House of Commons because the latter would win. As such, the Sovereign’s role is largely ceremonial.
  - kazen44 9y ago
    This is pretty much the case for any monarchy in europe these days. In Belgium for instance, the monarch has to sign all legislation into law. For personal reasons, could not sign a abortion bill drafted by the belgium parlement. Because denying to sign the bill directly would results in basically the end of the monarchy, he decided to "resign" for a day, the cabinet assumed his powers, the bill got signed, and he was reinstated again.[0] [0] https://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/05/world/belgian-king-unable-to-sign-abortion-law-takes-day-off.html https://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/05/world/belgian-king-unable...
- andrewaylett 9y ago
  When viewed in a certain light, maybe. But the monarch's hands are tied by parliament: while in theory the Queen may choose not to assent to a bill put before her, it's widely considered that freedom would be withdrawn if she actually tried to use it. Much of what goes into the sausage-making that is the UK parliamentary system is there by custom, on the one hand because it would be legislatively expensive to modernise; on the other because no-one would ever agree on what to replace it with.

vidarh 9y ago

The House of Commons is, in terms of authority, one of the most powerful parliamentary chambers in the world. Most places there are constitutional limits on what parliament can decide and/or qualified majorities and other constraints needed to change constitutional law. In the UK, a central principle is that parliament is entirely sovereign. That is, parliament is not bound by any law decided by past parliaments, but can revoke or alter any of them (they are bound as long as they let a law stand, though) with a simple majority. While your comment elsewhere that they need things to pass through House of Lords is sort of right, consider that the House of Commons powers are bootstrapped - e.g. the UK Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 severely curtailed the Lords powers, and both were passed as a direct response to the House of Lords being seen as obstructing the House of Commons. The Lords failed to stop both, because they knew in advance of the 1911 act that the government had threatened to simply stuff the Lords full of sympathetic new peers (lords). As such, while the UK has a bicameral system, the Lords exceedingly rarely stop laws, it usually only delay them or cause negotiations over revisions, as if the Commons decide to push something through over the objections of the Lords, they generally get their will, and coupled with the lack of constitutional hindrances, they're more powerful than even most unicameral legislatives. > I interpret this as trying to understand the problem better, not prosecute someone, in which case it's not who's-legally-responsible, but who-gets-Facebooks-DNA-and-vision-for-the-future. This is true. It's not in any way a court proceeding. In this respect it's no different from being summoned to attend an inquiry in any other parliament.

pbhjpbhj 9y ago
>In the UK, a central principle is that parliament is entirely sovereign. // Not entirely sovereign, legally the Sovereign is advised by parliament, the government is hers, and she signs acts in to law according to her whim ... of course the power resides in a delicate balance and the legal situation belies the complexity of the true power structure.
- vidarh 9y ago
  This is sort of true, but only in extremely limited cases. It is a constitutional convention that the monarch will follow the advice of ministers other than when exercising reserve powers, and ministers have extremely limited constitutional flexibility in terms of advicing the monarch to give assent. The monarchs power to refuse royal assent for bills is not part of the reserve powers other than in very limited circumstances (she can delay assent in the case of "near revolutionary" conditions; she can in theory refuse assent on advice of ministers, last exercised by Queen Anne in 1708; she can refuse assent on bills that directly relate to her reserve powers themselves, or her property). So while on paper she "signs acts into law according to her whim", if she fails to sign laws outside that very narrow scope, she'll have violated a constitutional convention that has been a settled part of UK constitutional law for something like two centuries. This would not just be outrageous, but would be subject to legal challenge, as notably, it has been established since 1611, and not challenged by a monarch since 1688, that the judiciary has the power to restrict the royal prerogative, and the judiciary in the UK has centuries of history of taking a very dim view on monarchs trying to reclaim powers that have been de facto transferred to parliament. Odds are she'd find herself having the power legally stripped from her at best, at worst it'd be the end of the monarchy. In other words, in practice it is legal fiction that this power rests with the monarch - outside of the reserve powers it rests with the monarch only as long as she only exercises them in a ceremonial capacity in line with the wishes of parliament. Even the reserve powers are retained mostly because they are exercised so incredibly rarely (e.g. some of them have not been attempted used for centuries) and/or have very limited effect (e.g. on the rare circumstances where the monarch has exercised her powers to choose whom to appoint as PM in modern history it was accepted because the decisions were in line with parliamentary reality, and because parliament could instantly overthrow said government if it did not agree with the choice), but the reserve powers are at least nominally actual powers that the monarch can with some caution actually exercise and get away with it. The rest of the royal prerogatives are not.

qubex 9y ago

You’re very wrong, but it’s also unpleasant that you are being downvoted so forcibly. The House of Commons is the highest authority in the UK and one of the most powerful and sovereign bodies in the world. I think you were thinking of the House of Lords.

TallGuyShort 9y ago
Oh you know what? I think I am thinking of the House of Lords - thanks. My point is more that it's information gathering anyway. There's no reason they have to deal with an official UK representative of the company - they want to speak to whoever they think is really the best insight / strongest influencer. And if that's Zuck and not the CEO of the UK legal entity, it's Zuck they talk to.