Note (Back) — Chapter III

56. The Crown and Legislation.—The second general group of powers lodged in the crown comprises those which relate to legislation. Technically, all legislative authority is vested in "the king in parliament," by which is meant the king acting in collaboration with the two houses. Parliament transacts business only during the pleasure of the crown. The crown summons and prorogues the houses, and it is empowered at any time to dissolve the House of Commons. No parliamentary act, furthermore, is valid without the crown's assent. It is on the legislative, rather than the executive side, none the less, that the crown has lost most heavily in actual authority. There was a time when the crown possessed inherent law-making power and through the agency of proclamations and ordinances contributed independently to the body of enforceable law. To-day the sovereign may exercise no such power, save alone in the crown colonies. It is true that ordinances with the force of law are still issued, and that their number and importance tend steadily to be increased. But in all cases these ordinances have been, and must be, authorized specifically by statute. As "statutory orders" they emanate from a delegated authority purely and bear no relation to the ancient ordinance by prerogative. The king may not even, by virtue of any inherent power, promulgate ordinances in completion of parliamentary statutes—the sort of thing which the French president, the Italian king, and virtually every continental ruler may do with full propriety. Of his own authority, furthermore, the sovereign may not alter by one jot or tittle the law of the land. There was a time when the crown claimed and exercised the right to suspend, or to dispense with, laws which had been duly enacted and put in operation. But this practice was forbidden definitely in the Bill of Rights, and no sovereign since the last Stuart has sought to revive the prerogative. Still another aspect of the ancient participation by the king in the legislative function was the influencing of the composition of the House of Commons through the right to confer upon boroughs the privilege of electing members. This right, never expressly withdrawn, is regarded now as having been forfeited by disuse. Finally, the power to withhold assent from a measure passed in Parliament has not been exercised since the days of Queen Anne,[72] and while legally it still exists, it is conceded for all practical purposes to have been extinguished.