Comparing the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly
On the 1st of July 1999 the Scottish Parliament assumed its full
powers and duties. This was a devolved government, where some
legislative powers were transferred from Westminster to the Parliament
in Scotland. The Scottish parliament was designed to embody the links
between the people of Scotland, the members of the Scottish Parliament
and the Scottish Executive. The powers of duty are divided between the
Scottish Executive (handles ministerial powers and duties) and the
Secretary of State for Scotland (holds responsibilities relating to
reserved matters). The Secretary of State however, remains a member of
the UK cabinet. Most importantly, it can pass primary legislation and
has tax varying powers.
The Government of Wales act was passed in 1998, which established a
national assembly for Wales. This was endorsed by a referendum on 18th
of September 1997. This enabled a transfer of the powers from the
secretary of state for Wales to the assembly itself. The first
secretary, Rhodri Morgan is responsible for ensuring that the cabinet
works well as a team, constitutional relationships, cost cutting and
Europe. The Welsh Assembly does not have the same power as Scotland
and is only able to pass secondary legislation.
Referendums were held to ask the question to people in Scotland and
Wales as to whether they wanted devolution. Scotland had previously
held a referendum in 1979 where a ‘yes’ vote scraped through with a
52% majority, however this did not pass due to a 40% turnout. This
radically changed in 1997 where a ‘yes’ vote claimed a 74% majority
with 60% turnout. In contrast...
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...have exceeded expectations due to the feelings
from both of the country towards devolution; and how that
establishment has performed since then. The Welsh Assembly began with
very little support and the Welsh people were pleasantly surprised
when it started passing a great amount of legislation, whereas there
was an outcry for Scottish devolution and although legislation was
passed, it wasn’t in the leagues and to the effect that it was
expected to be. Due to this I think that I agree with the initial
statement, even though both establishments had a lot of problems
through both leadership and failings in the first few years. I think
that the Scottish Parliament simply needs more time to assert itself
as an effective devolved institution, then it will be more obvious to
people of the actual limits of the Welsh Assembly.
Wales and the Spanish Civil War There were many reasons for the men of south Wales joining the Spanish civil war most of which can be divided up in to the following categories; Political, Economic, Social, Cultural and Religious. The most important of which I feel is Political as I think you can find that all these other problems stemmed from the political reasons. It was these political reasons that had the most impact on the miners and ultimately more than any of the others encouraged them to actively join the war Spanish Civil war, which was being fought over the political division between the right wing nationalists and the left wing republicans. Although all the world powers had signed an agreement of non-involvement Nazi troops from Germany and soldiers from Italy were sent to help the nationalists. A total of 174 welsh men joined the international brigade to help the republicans along with Scots, Mexicans and Russians in order to fight for their communist beliefs and in an attempt to stop the spread of fascism across the world.
then prepares its reports. If a change to the law is decided on then a
If the parties in our governmental system would openly discuss about the difference in positions and in point of views within the groups in realizing these controversies will minimize the unnecessary troubles greatly. Another possibility of improvement would be following the great examples of other countries with the Westminster governance system. For example, in countries like Australia and New Zealand have already a well-established party discipline rules that are less strict than the ones in Canada and way more effective than the ones we have. In an article, it was said that” Australian parties are considerably more discipline than those in the UK an even those in Canada, although the degree of discipline in the latter has been the subject of much critical comment. Parliamentary votes in the UK are subject to varying degrees of party discipline, with the most rigid being the so-called” three-line whip’ votes. Neither Australia nor Canada has such gradations. In New Zealand party discipline has increased under its mixed Member proportional (MMP) electoral system and, unless party leaders have agreed to a conscience vote, standing orders require a party vote to be taken rather than individuals casting their votes in the chamber. “(Sawer, Abjorensen and Larkin
Over the years the main parties in Scotland have different position about Scottish devolution, so the success of pro-devolution forces in the 1997 referendum was thank to a cross-party support within the campaigns for Scottish self-government. During the 1997 election Scotland was promised a referendum on devolution by the Labour Party, what was carried out in 1997 four months after the general election. The process of devolution started, leading to a Scottish Parliament based in Edinburgh coming into being in 1999.
In this article Thorson is arguing against Mayhew and his argument that a divided government does not impact the amount of significant legislation that is passed and enacted. Thorson argues that Mayhew may be correct in that there is no difference between the number of bills passed, but a divided government does effect the formation of coalitions. Thorson specific argument is that party unity votes that favor the dominant party are more likely to form on final votes of passage during periods of unified government....
Scotland wanting to gain independence has been a constant, remaining issue for sometime. Scotland received their first chance to vote for independence in 1979, however the majority of Scotland voted no. Then later in 1997 a vote was held for Scotland to have its own parliament with devolved powers, which the people of Scotland voted yes to, and which was then granted in 1999. The vote this September, nonetheless, will be a pivotal point in British history as Scotland has the chance again to break away from the rest of Britain for good.
There are three branches in the United States government including; the Executive Branch, Judicial Branch and the Legislative Branch dealing with abortion. Each branch is ran under different set of rules with different purposes. The main job of the Legislative Branch is to create laws which then get passed to the executive branch for approval or rejection. The Judicial Branch interprets laws and ensures they are constitutional. All three branches are set up so that a power of balance can exist in our government. These branches are responsible for the laws in this country and greatly affect the lives of Americans.
From the very beggining of the play, Shakespeare introduces the way the government is structured. The way the government is organized in Macbeth is as follows: the king stands at the top of the pyramid, later comes the nobles, or as they are refered as in the play, thanes, and below them goes the rest of the people. Shakespeare, of course, concentrates on demonstating how much power each person has and how the King is the one with the most authority. However, as the play proceeds, it is discovered that the nobles in fact hold more power than the King actually does. The reason for this would be that nobles are wealthy men that own land and can support the country economically, what in fact the King cannot do on his own. This aslo would explain
The 1796 United States presidential election was the first election with different parties, over American presidential election. The 1796 election was the first to select president and vice president from opposing parties. John Adams was the President and Thomas Jefferson was the Vice President. These two were both from opposing parties. It was the first election to see if a nation could transfer power through a nation by elections.
The SNP's landslide was substantially due to a Scotland-wide collapse in Lib Dem support [the opposing party] in protest at its coalition in London, with hundreds of thousands of voters switching to the SNP.” (Carrell, 2011) This has resulted in a distrust towards the direction that Scotland was going, and so the SNP along with Alex Salmond played big parts in the movement of a new referendum. So that Scotland can enhance its wealth and policies internationally, it is wise for Scotland to obtain its own seat in the EU, UN, and NATO. This proves that domestic actors played a large role in the push for a new country, and international organizations play a role in supporting Scotland’s economy, supporting
One of the most influential and celebrated scholars of British consistutional law , Professor A.V Dicey, once declared parliamentary soverignity as “the dominant feature of our political insitutions” . This inital account of parliamentray soverginity involved two fundamental components, fistly :that the Queen-in-Parliament the “right to make or unmake any law whatever” and that secondly “no person or body is recognised by the law of England as having a right to override or set aside the legislation of Parliament.” . However this Diceyian notion though an established principle of our constitution now lies uneasy amongst a myriad of contemporary challenges such as our membership of the European Union, the Human Rights Act and a spread of law making authority known as ‘Devolution’. In this essay I shall set out to assess the impact of each of these challenges upon the immutability of the traditional concept of parliamentary sovereignty in the British constitution.
Parliamentary sovereignty is a vital principle in the U.K constitution, which demonstrates that there are no legal limitations for parliament when creating/ending any legislation. The extent of impact Parliamentary sovereignty has is that nothing can override the legislation of parliament and it is impossible to bind future parliaments. However, these principles put forward by a constitutional law theorist Dicey, arguably do present political limits to parliamentary sovereignty. When the European law was incorporated in the U.K, parliamentary sovereignty was abdicated to the EU which prioritised European law. Thus, parliament had abdicated its power to another body which is referred to as the transfer of powers. To overcome the issue of EU Supremacy and parliamentary sovereignty the European Communities Act 1972 was passed in order to avoid conflicting views.
A parliamentary system of government is one in which government governs in and through the assembly of the parliament, thereby fusing the executive and legislative branch of government. Heywood (2000:313). Although they are formally distinct, the assembly and the executive are bound together in a way that violates the doctrine of separation of power. The British Parliament is one of the oldest parliaments in the world. This study is concerned with understanding the efficiency and effectiveness of the parliament in producing legislation.
and the second is a free vote, this is when MPs are allowed to make up
In their book, Smith and Wistrich state that Britain sensed a problem in the identity once there has been devolution of power to Scotland and Wales in 1998 (2009). It maybe true that Scots and Welsh feel more attached to their own na...