Ministerial Responsibility
From the offset, there is a conflict of principles regarding the so-called convention of ministerial responsibility. Romantically, the Queen can never be answerable to Parliament and if we see the Crown as the Executive, then ministers cannot be held accountable, insofar as they represent the Queen-in Council-in Parliament. Surely, therefore, there can be no concrete constitutional convention compelling ministers to answer and explain to Parliament which is consistent with the traditional and stable conceptual Crown? However, this view is somewhat archaic, as it became incompatible with modern day politics and democracy, which began to require that ministers explain and justify themselves, and the actions of their departments, to the public through Parliament. "The move of the public interest from the concerns of the elite to the affairs of the whole population in the middle years of the last century was marked by an expansion in the work of central government and the consequent recognition that it had to be done with greater competence than hitherto."1 So, it is through history and the expansion of Parliament beyond imperial matters, that the convention of ministerial responsibility has evolved and now purports to reflect the inc
If Parliament can, indeed, "learn its lesson" and fulfill its constitutional obligations, then the convention would be returned to its proper status as "an effective weapon in Parliament's armoury by which ministers are held fully to account and are made truly, and constitutionally, responsible. " The doctrine clearly has wider implications in that it aids in Parliament exercising its constitutional authority over the government. Even this was an era where the convention seemed to relate more with the crude reality of parliamentary practice, than with the constitutional theory. was part of the wider political debate in the post war years concerning the proper boundaries of public and private enterprise". However, in examining the case more fully, the clearcut operation of the doctrine becomes increasingly blurred. This seems to affirm the idea that the traditional "convention" is indeed a fiction as it is only encouraged in exceptional circumstances, relating to a fortuitous conjuncture of political feelings or tempers, not because of the existence of a compulsive consitutional convention. In the aftermath of the Maze break-out3, Mr James Prior refused to resign, saying that there was "no clear rule and no established convention [of ministerial responsibility]" But Mr Enoch Powell ostensibly acted as an advocate to the convention claiming that, "if the responsibility can be abjured by a Minister, a great deal of our proceedings in the House is a beating of the air because we are talking to people who, in the last resort, disclaim responsibility for the administration. " Jacob also recognizes (ibid), "the public agitation. However, these examples are often dismissed as being exceptional and irrelevant, due to the timely publication of events relating to Crichel Down. "3, a mutation of the traditional doctrine that has been widely used by ministers to defend their positions. In reality, however, it is likely that Downing Street will launch a ruthless spin operation, in a similar vein to the Conservative government's4 seizure of a few favourable words in the Scott Report, in an attempt to turn the story into one about the BBC. "7 Secondly, the minister had taken a personal part in the transactions and had made decisions in the knowledge of the full facts of the case. If this proves to be true, we will be one step closer to an acknowledgment that the crude reality of today's politics and parliamentary procedure cannot accommodate a convention of true ministerial responsibility, which is becoming a fiction in writing. It could be argued that the doctrine is not merely a constitutional myth for one fundamental reason. "2 Recently, the convention has been diluted, and the refusal of ministers to resign in the event of various departmental failures in the last 20 years epitomizes this dissipation of the doctrine, which seems to vindicate the proposition that it is indeed a fiction.
Common topics in this essay:
Parliament Surely,
Crichel Down6,
Agencies Tomkins,
Falkland Islands,
Ministerial Code,
Procedure Ministers5,
Andrew Barker,
Peter Barberis,
Accountability Tomkins,
Crown Lands,
ministerial responsibility,
convention ministerial,
convention ministerial responsibility,
civil servants,
modern day,
sir thomas dugdale,
ultimate sanction,
escape culpability,
crude reality,
constitutional obligations,
ministerial resignation,
arms iraq affair,
definitive role play,
established convention,
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Acceptance Essays
