In Commonwealth realms other than the United Kingdom, Royal Assent is given or refused either by the sovereign of the realm or, more commonly, by the sovereign`s representative, the Governor General. [58] In federated empires, consent is given or refused in each state or province by the representatives of the sovereign. In Australia, they are the state governors. For Canada, they are the lieutenant governors of the provinces. A lieutenant governor may defer the approval of the governor general,[59] and the governor general may defer the approval of federal laws to the sovereign. [60] In the United Kingdom, a bill seeking Royal Assent is introduced after passing all necessary steps in the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Under the Parliamentary Acts of 1911 and 1949, the House of Commons may, in certain circumstances, order that a bill be submitted to Royal Assent even if the House of Lords has not passed it. [66] Royal Assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an Act of the Legislature (either directly or through an officer acting on his or her behalf). In some jurisdictions, Royal Assent is synonymous with enactment, while in others it is a separate step. In a modern constitutional monarchy, Royal Assent is little more than a formality; Even in countries that theoretically still allow the monarch to refuse to consent to laws (such as the United Kingdom, Norway, and Liechtenstein), the monarch almost never does so, except in cases of political emergency or on the advice of their government. While the right to veto legislation by denying royal assent was once often exercised by European monarchs, such an event has been very rare since the eighteenth century. Originally, legislative power was exercised by the sovereign, who acted on the advice of the Curia regis or the Royal Council, in which important magnates and clerics participated, and which developed into a parliament.
In 1265, the Earl of Leicester irregularly convened a full parliament without royal approval.[11] [12] The composition of the Model Parliament, founded in 1295 under Edward I, was eventually divided into two branches: bishops, abbots, earls and barons formed the House of Lords, while the two knights from each county and two citizens from each borough ruled the House of Commons.[12] [13] The King sought the advice and consent of both Houses before passing a law. During the reign of Henry VI, it became customary for both houses to enact laws in the form of bills, which only became law when the consent of the sovereign was obtained, since the sovereign was and still is the executor of the laws. Therefore, all Acts contain the following clause: „That it be issued by the Most Distinguished Majesty of the Queen (the King), by and with the advice and assent of the Spiritual and Temporal Lords, and of the Commons, assembled in this present Parliament, and by their authority, as follows.“. [14] The Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 provide for a second possible preamble in the event that the House of Lords is excluded from the proceedings. The Lieutenant Governors of the Bailiwick of Jersey and the Bailiwick and the Islands of Guernsey do not grant their own authority or Royal Assent to the Acts of the respective legislatures of those islands, as representatives of the British Crown. At both state and federal levels in Australia, consent is used as a means of imposing a required referendum. This is done by providing that it is not even legal to submit the law to the viceroy for approval unless it has been approved by the required percentage of the voting population in a referendum. [62] According to Article 109 of the Constitution: „The King shall sanction and promulgate laws.“ In Belgium, Royal Assent is called Royal Assent / koninklijke bekrachtiging (Royal Assent) and is granted by the King signing the proposed statute (and a minister countersigning it). The Belgian Constitution stipulates that a theoretically possible rejection of royal assent – like any other act of the monarch – must be countersigned by a competent minister before the Chamber of Deputies. The monarch promulgates the law, which means that he formally orders that the law be officially published and executed.
When King Baudouin informed his cabinet in 1990 that, for reasons of conscience, he could not sign a law decriminalizing abortion (a refusal that was obviously not covered by a competent minister), the Council of Ministers declared Baudouin, at the king`s request, incapable of exercising his powers. According to the Belgian Constitution, once the incompetence of the sovereign was established, the Council of Ministers assumed the powers of the Head of State until Parliament could rule on the King`s incompetence and appoint a regent. The draft law was then approved by all members of the Council of Ministers „on behalf of the Belgian people“. [87] In a joint session, the two houses of parliament declared the king capable of exercising his powers again the next day. [88] Before the Royal Assent by the Commission Act, 1541 came into force, assent had to be given by the Sovereign personally before Parliament. If ever the Spanish monarch dutifully refused to grant royal consent, a procedure similar to the Belgian handling of King Baudouin`s objection under the current constitution would not be possible. If the sovereign were ever declared incapable of exercising royal authority, his powers would not be transferred to the Cabinet until Parliament appointed a regency. Instead, the constitution states that the next adult person in line to the throne immediately becomes regent. If Juan Carlos had followed the Belgian example in 2005 or 2010, a declaration of incapacity would have transferred power to Felipe, the heir to the throne at the time. In the 1960s, the approval ceremony was interrupted by the Commission and is used only once a year, at the end of the annual parliamentary session.