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> The British system is strictly about convention and precedent, whereas Americans have a little more explicit guidance from the Constitution. This is complica

by flukus 6y ago

> The British system is strictly about convention and precedent, whereas Americans have a little more explicit guidance from the Constitution. This is complicated by the supreme court which is far more political in the US than the rest of the anglosphere, to the point where it's arguably a third chamber of legislature. They have a lot more latitude to reinterpret the constitution as they wish than anywhere else and they provide the precedent that would very often be left to parliament in other countries. Just to highlight the difference, if you asked a random citizen of Canada, Australia, New Zealand or the UK to name a single supreme court judge they'd probably be unable to.

JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> if you asked a random citizen of Canada, Australia, New Zealand or the UK to name a single supreme court judge they'd probably be unable to Don't each of these countries feature sovereign Parliaments [1]? Congress is not sovereign. It is one of three co-equal branches of government. This, the separation of powers, was a deliberate decision by America's founders. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_sovereignty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_sovereignty
- cmrdporcupine 6y ago
  There is an (appointed) upper house in Canada and the UK at least, that in theory can act as a check on parliament. In the real world, separate from theory, the Westminster system seems to have evolved into something far less vulnerable to authoritarianism than the US system. Constant partisan conflict and strife and culture wars down there seem to have yielded a degraded democracy, with the presidency assuming many trappings of a monarchy. At least the Crown is a symbolic monarchy without real power. I remember being absolutely flabbergasted with the bizarrely reverent way Americans talks about Bush when bombing commenced on Iraq and Afghanistan in the early 2000s; the concept of a "commander in chief" and the general marshal tone of US politics around the executive are quite baffling. But I suppose it makes sense given that the first president was a general.
  - krisgee 6y ago
    >There is an (appointed) upper house in Canada and the UK at least, that in theory can act as a check on parliament. If anything needs reform it's the fucking Senate. Basically the same problems as the US Supreme Court has where whoever's in charge when people die get to pack the upper house of government. I'd happily take at least term limits but I feel like it should either be elected or produced somehow via vote share during the parlimentary election.
- skissane 6y ago
  > > if you asked a random citizen of Canada, Australia, New Zealand or the UK to name a single supreme court judge they'd probably be unable to > Don't each of these countries feature sovereign Parliaments [1]? Australia does not have a sovereign Parliament. The Parliament of Australia is subject to the Constitution of Australia, and the High Court of Australia can and sometimes even does invalidate Acts of the Australian Parliament as violating that constitution. So in that regard, the Parliament of Australia has limited powers just like the US Congress does. The big difference is that while the US has three coequal branches, Australia only has two – the legislative and the judicial branches. In Australia, while the executive branch is theoretically equal to the legislative branch, in practice the executive is subordinated to the legislature. Actually the question of whether even the UK Parliament is sovereign is debated. Keep in mind the UK has three legal systems: (1) England and Wales, (2) Scotland, (3) Northern Ireland. Northern Irish law is based on English law, so Northern Irish constitutional law has at best minor differences from English constitutional law. By contrast, Scottish law is a completely distinct legal system, with a very different heritage (based on Continental legal system, ultimately tracing its origin to the laws of the Roman Empire), and that includes a distinct body of constitutional law. And while it is true that parliamentary sovereignty is a fundamental principle of English constitutional law, its status under Scottish constitutional law is debated. In the 1953 case MacCormick v Lord Advocate, the Lord President Lord Cooper (the most senior judge in all of Scotland) said that "the principle of the unlimited sovereignty of Parliament is a distinctively English principle which has no counterpart in Scottish Constitutional Law", and left open the possibility that if the Parliament of the UK passed an Act which was a clear violation of the 1706 Treaty of Union which created the United Kingdom – for example, if the Parliament of the UK tried to abolish the independent Scottish legal system and impose English law on Scotland – the Scottish Courts would have the power to invalidate that Act. In practice this question is unlikely to ever arise, because it is politically inconceivable that the Parliament of the UK would ever actually pass such a law. (The case was about whether Queen Elizabeth II was allowed to use the regnal number II in Scotland, despite the fact that Scotland had never had a Queen Elizabeth I – the court ruled that the Treaty of Union said nothing on the topic, so the Queen's choice of what regnal number she used could not be said to violate the Treaty.) To answer the original question, I definitely remember the name of one former Australian High Court Justice – Michael Kirby (who is famous for being the first openly gay High Court justice). I am a bit of a law nerd, but I don't think you need to be a law nerd to remember that.

by flukus 6y ago

JumpCrisscross 6y ago

> if you asked a random citizen of Canada, Australia, New Zealand or the UK to name a single supreme court judge they'd probably be unable to Don't each of these countries feature sovereign Parliaments [1]? Congress is not sovereign. It is one of three co-equal branches of government. This, the separation of powers, was a deliberate decision by America's founders. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_sovereignty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_sovereignty

cmrdporcupine 6y ago
There is an (appointed) upper house in Canada and the UK at least, that in theory can act as a check on parliament. In the real world, separate from theory, the Westminster system seems to have evolved into something far less vulnerable to authoritarianism than the US system. Constant partisan conflict and strife and culture wars down there seem to have yielded a degraded democracy, with the presidency assuming many trappings of a monarchy. At least the Crown is a symbolic monarchy without real power. I remember being absolutely flabbergasted with the bizarrely reverent way Americans talks about Bush when bombing commenced on Iraq and Afghanistan in the early 2000s; the concept of a "commander in chief" and the general marshal tone of US politics around the executive are quite baffling. But I suppose it makes sense given that the first president was a general.
- krisgee 6y ago
  >There is an (appointed) upper house in Canada and the UK at least, that in theory can act as a check on parliament. If anything needs reform it's the fucking Senate. Basically the same problems as the US Supreme Court has where whoever's in charge when people die get to pack the upper house of government. I'd happily take at least term limits but I feel like it should either be elected or produced somehow via vote share during the parlimentary election.
skissane 6y ago
> > if you asked a random citizen of Canada, Australia, New Zealand or the UK to name a single supreme court judge they'd probably be unable to > Don't each of these countries feature sovereign Parliaments [1]? Australia does not have a sovereign Parliament. The Parliament of Australia is subject to the Constitution of Australia, and the High Court of Australia can and sometimes even does invalidate Acts of the Australian Parliament as violating that constitution. So in that regard, the Parliament of Australia has limited powers just like the US Congress does. The big difference is that while the US has three coequal branches, Australia only has two – the legislative and the judicial branches. In Australia, while the executive branch is theoretically equal to the legislative branch, in practice the executive is subordinated to the legislature. Actually the question of whether even the UK Parliament is sovereign is debated. Keep in mind the UK has three legal systems: (1) England and Wales, (2) Scotland, (3) Northern Ireland. Northern Irish law is based on English law, so Northern Irish constitutional law has at best minor differences from English constitutional law. By contrast, Scottish law is a completely distinct legal system, with a very different heritage (based on Continental legal system, ultimately tracing its origin to the laws of the Roman Empire), and that includes a distinct body of constitutional law. And while it is true that parliamentary sovereignty is a fundamental principle of English constitutional law, its status under Scottish constitutional law is debated. In the 1953 case MacCormick v Lord Advocate, the Lord President Lord Cooper (the most senior judge in all of Scotland) said that "the principle of the unlimited sovereignty of Parliament is a distinctively English principle which has no counterpart in Scottish Constitutional Law", and left open the possibility that if the Parliament of the UK passed an Act which was a clear violation of the 1706 Treaty of Union which created the United Kingdom – for example, if the Parliament of the UK tried to abolish the independent Scottish legal system and impose English law on Scotland – the Scottish Courts would have the power to invalidate that Act. In practice this question is unlikely to ever arise, because it is politically inconceivable that the Parliament of the UK would ever actually pass such a law. (The case was about whether Queen Elizabeth II was allowed to use the regnal number II in Scotland, despite the fact that Scotland had never had a Queen Elizabeth I – the court ruled that the Treaty of Union said nothing on the topic, so the Queen's choice of what regnal number she used could not be said to violate the Treaty.) To answer the original question, I definitely remember the name of one former Australian High Court Justice – Michael Kirby (who is famous for being the first openly gay High Court justice). I am a bit of a law nerd, but I don't think you need to be a law nerd to remember that.