Contents - Constitutional Court of Georgia

Swamping the Lords, Packing the Court, Sacking the King. Three Constitutional Crises
CONSTITUTIONAL CRISES
In the above we have focused on three unusual constitutional conflicts. In Britain, after a great
deal of fussing and fighting the Parliament Act 1911 was passed, under which the House of Lords’
unlimited right to veto legislation was reduced to a right to delay it for two years. The mere existence
of the Act has proved to be sufficient. It has only had to be employed on rare occasions: never
in respect of money bills, and only six times in respect of other statutes: Government of Ireland Act
1914, Welsh Church Act 1914, Parliament Act 1949, War Crimes Act 1991, European Parliamentary
Elections Act 1999, Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000. The first two statutes, Home Rule and
Welsh Disestablishment, were high on the Liberals’ wish list. As a result of the outbreak of the First
World War, however, it was years before they could be implemented. 76 The Parliament Act 1949
reduced the Lords’ suspensive veto to one year. Attlee’s Labour government was not enamoured of
the Lords and certainly did not want this House to be able to effectively block steps to nationalization,
which is why its right of veto was reduced even further. 77 The War Crimes Act allowed British
war criminals to be prosecuted, something from which according to the House of Lords no benefit
could be expected almost fifty years on. The fact that the Blair government, which has a very large
majority in the House of Commons, has availed itself of the Parliament Act in two successive years
has attracted attention.
In America the Court-packing episode has stirred the imagination and buried itself in the national
consciousness. The Supreme Court does not operate in a vacuum, but is part of a political system,
in which it plays a very significant role, but in which the limits of its power are also embedded. FDR
made it very clear where those limits lie and consequently contributed to the positioning of the
Court in American society.
The mini Royal Question in Belgium will not be forgotten in a hurry, either. The fact that it did
little damage to the King was tellingly revealed on his death a few years later, when the country
was inundated by a veritable wave of sorrow and posthumous demonstrations of affection. Prime
Minister Martens’ announcement of an amendment of the constitution to clarify the monarch’s
position in respect of legislation and to avoid a repeat of what happened 78 was soon forgotten,
though. It is being assumed, and no doubt rightly so, that even without a constitutional amendment
all the parties concerned will realize that the incident will not bear repetition.
The political and constitutional pressures that built up during the conflicts described were ultimately
released after a brief or longer period by means provided in constitutional law, albeit that
these means had to be applied very freely and now and again required some considerable manoeuvring.
We should not make a big deal out of it, though, especially as each case involved assuring the
76 Jenkins, Balfour’s Poodle, chapter XIV: Epilogue.
77 Ibid.
78 Proceedings of the combined assembly, 5 April 1990, p. 3 right-hand column. See also the interpellations in the Chamber and the Senate
on 19 April 1990, with post-mortems on what happened.
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