Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Gabbe (talk | contribs) at 09:33, 16 November 2002. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The Westminster System is a democratic system of government modelled after that of the United Kingdom. It is a series of procedures for operating a legislature.

Aspects of the Westminster system include:

• an executive branch made up of members of the legislature;
• the presence of opposition parties;
• two houses of parliament -- one that is elected and the other hereditary or appointed;
• a ceremonial head of state who is different from the head of government who may possess reserve powers which are not normally exercised.

Most of the procedures of a Westminster system are typicially defined by convention and practice rather than by a written constitution. In fact, it is common for the constitutional documents of a Westminster system not to even mention the head of government.

In a Westminster system, the members of parliament are elected by popular vote. A government is then formed by a party or coalition of parties that can command the support of the majority of parliament. The leader of this group is then named head of government by the ceremonial head of state, usually called the Governor-General.

The head of government, usually called the Prime Minister must be able to control a majority of seats within the elected legislative chamber. If the parliament passes a resolution of no confidence or if the government fails to pass a major bill such as the budget, then the government must resign and new elections are called. The head of government can ask the head of state to dissolve the legislature and call for new elections and must do so periodically. Although the dissolution of the legislature and the call for new elections is formally done by the head of state, by convention the head of state acts according to the wishes of the head of government and does not possess any independent authority. There are a number of consequences of the Westminister system. They tend to have extremely well-disciplined legislative parties in which it is highly unusual for a legislator to vote against their party and in which no confidence votes are very rare. Also, Westminister systems tend to have strong cabinets in which cabinet members other than the prime minister are politicians with independent basis of support. Conversely, legislative committees in Westminister systems tend to be weak.

Another convention of the Westminster system at least used to be that ministers were responsible for the actions of their department (even though government departments can be huge bureauracies with powerful senior staff), so if the department was responsible for a major misjudgement, blame would fall on the minister regardless of whether they were involved or even aware of the situation. Such a convention of ministerial responsibility, if it were ever explicitly followed, is now ignored, with ministers now only forced to resign when they become such an embarrassment to their government that they are too much of a politicial liability to leave in their post.

Countries that follow the Westminster system, at least partly, include the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

See also:

• Magna Carta
• English Civil War
• Glorious Revolution
• English Bill of Rights