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Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in others that is a separate step. Under a modern constitutional monarchy, royal assent is considered little more than a formality. Even in nations such as the United Kingdom, Norway and Liechtenstein which still, in theory, permit their monarch to withhold assent to laws, the monarch almost never does so, except in a dire political emergency or on advice of government. While the power to veto by withholding royal assent was once exercised often by European monarchs, such an occurrence has been very rare since the eighteenth century.
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An election for 16 Scottish representative peers took place on 6 October 1959 at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh. It turned out to be the last election for representative peers as in 1963 all holders of titles in the Peerage of Scotland were made eligible to sit in the House of Lords.
A by-election for a Scottish representative peer took place on 1 October 1958 at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh. The election was caused by the death of Archibald Murray, 16th Lord Sinclair. It turned out to be the last by-election for representative peers before all holders of titles in the Peerage of Scotland were made eligible to sit in the House of Lords in 1963.
On 28 August 2019, the Parliament of the United Kingdom was ordered to be prorogued by Queen Elizabeth II upon the advice of the Conservative prime minister, Boris Johnson, advice later ruled to be unlawful. The prorogation, or suspension, of Parliament was to be effective from between 9 and 12 September 2019 and last until the State Opening of Parliament on 14 October 2019; in the event, Parliament was suspended between 10 September and 24 September. Since Parliament was to be prorogued for five weeks and reconvene just 17 days before the United Kingdom's scheduled departure from the European Union on 31 October 2019, the move was seen by many opposition politicians and political commentators as a controversial and unconstitutional attempt by the prime minister to avoid parliamentary scrutiny of the Government's Brexit plans in those final weeks leading up to Brexit. Johnson and his Government defended the prorogation of Parliament as a routine political process that ordinarily follows the selection of a new prime minister and would allow the Government to refocus on a legislative agenda.
References
- "MINUTES OF MEETING held on the 23rd May, 1955, of PEERS OF SCOTLAND for the ELECTION OF THEIR REPRESENTATIVES to sit and vote in the ensuing Parliament of Great Britain and Northern Ireland." House of Lords paper 4 of Session 1955–56, HMSO.
- ↑ Sir James Fergusson, "The Sixteen Peers of Scotland", Oxford University Press, 1960, p. 105-106.
- 1 2 "Scottish Peers Ballot" . The Times. London. 24 May 1955. p. 14.
- ↑ Minutes, HL 4 1955-56, p. 4.