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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9549881" data-attributes="member: 6790260">It absolutely does. People call things stuff all the time. That doesn't make it true or correct.According to you.Actually, he can! Like that's literally a thing the UK monarch can actually do!It's just that if he ever did so, Parliament would almost certainly near-immediately strip the royal family of anything resembling influence or authority that it still might have. The power remains without being officially stripped away because there is a gentleperson's agreement that it will almost never, but not quite absolutely never, actually be used.There is no normative force here, nothing binding that prevents it. There is, however, a consequence for choosing to break the convention against doing that thing. But, to give an actual, concrete example: conventionally, anything that Parliament passes as law will be given "royal assent". In essentially all cases, this is a mere formality, a convention preserved because of the arcane way that English law crystallized out of the previous pure-autocrat system that had previously existed. (Hence where we get ridiculous, but legally essential, concepts like "the Crown-in-Parliament"--because technically speaking, it is still the Crown that has the right to legislate, it's just that "the Crown" is not actually the person of the monarch, but the legal framework surrounding how laws are created.)Thing is...nothing actually forces the monarch to give royal assent. At any time, for any reason or no reason at all, the monarch could deny royal assent, which, completely legally, prevents that law from coming into effect. It is, effectively, an absolute veto power. No part of English law prevents this and while it would be a flagrant violation of custom, no actual penalty or punishment arises from that act. Parliament likes that this exists, because it can be used as a last-ditch emergency escape clause if a situation has gone pear-shaped and a consequence-free do-over is desired. This happens extremely rarely, but it has, in fact, happened; the last time royal assent was denied in England (rather, the Kingdom of Great Britain) was in 1708, with the Scottish Militia Bill, which Queen Anne denied royal assent...because the Cabinet asked her to, as the sudden revelation that France was supporting Jacobite rebels with a potential French invasion fleet opened the possibility that a Scottish militia would be disloyal to the Queen and instead support her half-brother, the only son of James II & VII.Note, however, that I said "in England". Denial of royal assent was used frequently in the British colonies of North America by George III. There were zero consequences of this, because the English populace didn't care that a bunch of yokel colonists were getting their random-whatever laws vetoed, and it was completely legal for George III to do this--any realm under the British crown (what we would now call "the Commonwealth") is potentially subject to denial of royal assent.So....yeah. I'm quite well aware that the English """constitution""" is nothing of the sort, held together with chewing gum and baling wire, but your example is both factually and historically inaccurate. There is, in fact, a rule. By convention, that rule is almost never invoked anymore, but there's literally nothing actually stopping it. There would almost surely be negative consequences for the monarch if he or she did invoke it without a fantastically good reason, but "your actions have consequences" is not a rule, it's just a fact of life.I would not be at all surprised if, for example, a Prime Minister that was found to have done something deeply offensive but not technically illegal--and thus almost totally insulated from actual consequences, as "impeachment" means something different in English law compared to almost anywhere else in the world--might be sacked by Charles III or a successor at the request of Parliament. That wouldn't violate convention, because it would be done at the request of democratically-elected officials rather than the monarch simply doing what he likes because he feels like it. And it would be using a real, official, extant law...just one that is essentially never used.</blockquote>

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