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Prorogation in the Westminster system of government is the action of proroguing, or interrupting, a parliament, or the discontinuance of meetings for a given period of time, without a dissolution of parliament. The term is also used for the period of such a discontinuance between two legislative sessions of a legislative body.
In the constitution of ancient Rome, prorogatio was the extension of a commander's imperium beyond the one-year term of his magistracy, usually that of consul or praetor. Prorogatio developed as a legal procedure in response to Roman expansionism and militarization. [1]
This usage is unrelated to the modern parliamentary term.
In Australia, prorogation is the end of a session in the Australian Parliament pursuant to section 5 of the Constitution of Australia.
Prorogation is the end of a session in the Parliament of Canada.
Prorogation is the end of a session in the New Zealand Parliament pursuant to the Constitution Act 1986. The ability of the speaker to recall parliament during an adjournment has rendered prorogation almost obsolete, and the procedure was last used in 1991. [2]
Prorogation in Northern Ireland was the end of a session in the Parliament of Northern Ireland (1921–1972).
Prorogation is the formal ending of a Parliamentary session in the UK Parliament. [3] [4]
Under Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution the President of the United States technically has the authority to adjourn [5] the United States Congress "to such Time as he shall think proper" when it is unable to agree on a time of adjournment. However, this is a procedural ability that has so far never been used. The members of the Constitutional Convention agreed to limit executive authority in order to prevent autocracy. [6] In Federalist No. 69 , Alexander Hamilton differentiated the President's authority to prorogue Congress from the King of Great Britain's ability to dissolve Parliament.
On April 15, 2020, while Congress was in recess due to the COVID-19 pandemic but still holding pro forma sessions, President Donald Trump threatened to use the presidential prerogative powers to adjourn both the House of Representatives and the Senate in order to make recess appointments for positions such as Director of National Intelligence and the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, citing what he argued was obstructionism and extreme partisanship from the Democratic Party. [7] However, constitutional law experts and politicians have argued that President Trump did not have the constitutional authority to do so under those conditions, as both houses had agreed on a date of adjournment, and President Trump's argument that the President can force Congress to adjourn was widely condemned by both Republicans and Democrats. [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] In order to prorogue Congress, the Senate would have to set a different date of adjournment than the House of Representatives. Although President Trump called on the Senate to set a new adjournment date, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell indicated that he would not alter the planned adjournment date of January 3, 2021, and any motion to alter the date would require the approval of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and the Democratic members of the Senate through the Senate Standing Rules. [8] [10] [14]
The dictionary definition of prorogation at Wiktionary The dictionary definition of prorogue at Wiktionary
Article Two of the United States Constitution establishes the executive branch of the federal government, which carries out and enforces federal laws. Article Two vests the power of the executive branch in the office of the president of the United States, lays out the procedures for electing and removing the president, and establishes the president's powers and responsibilities.
A pocket veto is a legislative maneuver that allows a president or other official with veto power to exercise that power over a bill by taking no action, thus effectively killing the bill without affirmatively vetoing it. This depends on the laws of each country; the common alternative is that if the president takes no action a bill automatically becomes law.
The term pro forma is most often used to describe a practice or document that is provided as a courtesy or satisfies minimum requirements, conforms to a norm or doctrine, tends to be performed perfunctorily or is considered a formality. The term is used in legal and business fields to refer to various types of documents that are generated as a matter of course.
In the United States, a recess appointment is an appointment by the president of a federal official when the U.S. Senate is in recess. Under the U.S. Constitution's Appointments Clause, the president is empowered to nominate, and with the advice and consent (confirmation) of the Senate, make appointments to high-level policy-making positions in federal departments, agencies, boards, and commissions, as well as to the federal judiciary. A recess appointment under Article II, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution is an alternative method of appointing officials that allows the temporary filling of offices during periods when the Senate is not in session. It was anticipated that the Senate would be away for months at a time, so the ability to fill vacancies in important positions when the Senate is in recess and unavailable to provide advice and consent was deemed essential to maintain government function, as described by Alexander Hamilton in No. 67 of The Federalist Papers.
The dissolution of a legislative assembly is the simultaneous termination of service of all of its members, in anticipation that a successive legislative assembly will reconvene later with possibly different members. In a democracy, the new assembly is chosen by a general election. Dissolution is distinct on the one hand from abolition of the assembly, and on the other hand from its adjournment or prorogation, or the ending of a legislative session, any of which begins a period of inactivity after which it is anticipated that the same members will reassemble. For example, the "second session of the fifth parliament" could be followed by the "third session of the fifth parliament" after a prorogation, but would be followed by the "first session of the sixth parliament" after a dissolution.
A concurrent resolution is a resolution adopted by both houses of a bicameral legislature that lacks the force of law and does not require the approval of the chief executive (president). Concurrent resolutions are typically adopted to regulate the internal affairs of the legislature that adopted them, or for other purposes, if authority of law is not necessary.
The powers of the president of the United States include those explicitly granted by Article II of the United States Constitution as well as those granted by Acts of Congress, implied powers, and also a great deal of soft power that is attached to the presidency.
Advice and consent is an English phrase frequently used in enacting formulae of bills and in other legal or constitutional contexts. It describes either of two situations: where a weak executive branch of a government enacts something previously approved of by the legislative branch or where the legislative branch concurs and approves something previously enacted by a strong executive branch.
A legislative session is the period of time in which a legislature, in both parliamentary and presidential systems, is convened for purpose of lawmaking, usually being one of two or more smaller divisions of the entire time between two elections. A session may last for the full term of the legislature or the term may consist of a number of sessions. These may be of fixed duration, such as a year, or may be determined by the party in power. In some countries, a session of the legislature is brought to an end by an official act of prorogation, in others by a motion to adjourn sine die. In either event, the close of a session generally brings an end to all unpassed bills in the legislature, which would have to be introduced anew to continue debate in the following session.
A lame-duck session of Congress in the United States occurs whenever one Congress meets after its successor is elected, but before the successor's term begins. The expression is now used not only for a special session called after a sine die adjournment, but also for any portion of a regular session that falls after an election. In current practice, any meeting of Congress after election day, but before the next Congress convenes the following January, is a lame-duck session. Prior to 1933, when the 20th Amendment changed the dates of the congressional term, the last regular session of Congress was always a lame-duck session.
The nomination and confirmation of justices to the Supreme Court of the United States involves several steps, the framework for which is set forth in the United States Constitution. Specifically, Article II, Section 2, Clause 2, provides that the president of the United States nominates a justice and that the United States Senate provides advice and consent before the person is formally appointed to the Court. It also empowers a president to temporarily, under certain circumstances, fill a Supreme Court vacancy by means of a recess appointment. The Constitution does not set any qualifications for service as a justice, thus the president may nominate any individual to serve on the Court.
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress. The Senate and the United States House of Representatives comprise the federal bicameral legislature of the United States. Together, the Senate and the House have the authority under Article One of the U.S. Constitution to pass or defeat federal legislation. The Senate has exclusive power to confirm U.S. presidential appointments to high offices, approve or reject treaties, and try cases of impeachment brought by the House. The Senate and the House provide a check and balance on the powers of the executive and judicial branches of government.
Prorogation is the end of a parliamentary session in the Parliament of Canada and the parliaments of its provinces and territories. It differs from a recess or adjournment, which do not end a session; and differs from a complete dissolution of parliament, which ends both the session and the entire parliament, requiring an election for the House of Commons in the bicameral federal parliament and the singular legislative chamber of the unicameral provincial parliaments.
National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning, 573 U.S. 513 (2014), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court unanimously ruled that the President of the United States cannot use his authority under the Recess Appointment Clause of the United States Constitution to appoint public officials unless the United States Senate is in recess and not able to transact Senate business. The Court held that the clause allows the president to make appointments during both intra-session and inter-session recesses but only if the recess is of sufficient length, and if the Senate is actually unavailable for deliberation, thereby limiting future recess appointments. The Court also ruled that any office vacancy can be filled during the recess, regardless of when it arose. The case arose out of President Barack Obama's appointments of Sharon Block, Richard Griffin, and Terence Flynn to the National Labor Relations Board and Richard Cordray as the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Section 5 of the Constitution of Australia empowers the Governor-General of Australia to prorogue the Australian Parliament, thereby bringing the current legislative session to an end. Prorogation clears all business pending before Parliament and allows the houses to be called back on a particular date without triggering an election. The date for the new session of Parliament may be specified either in the proroguing proclamation or when the governor-general summons the Parliament to meet again.
On March 16, 2016, President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to succeed Antonin Scalia, who had died one month earlier. At the time of his nomination, Garland was the chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Victoria v Commonwealth was an important decision of the High Court of Australia concerning the procedures in section 57 of the Constitution. The decision was one of several by the High Court following the 1974 joint sitting of the Australian Parliament. The High Court held, by majority, that one of the laws passed at the joint sitting - the Petroleum and Minerals Authority Act 1973 - was not valid because the required time had not elapsed between the Senate's first rejection of the law and its being passed a second time by the House of Representatives.
In United Kingdom constitutional law, prorogation is an act usually used to mark the end of a parliamentary session. Part of the royal prerogative, it is the name given to the period between the end of a session of the UK Parliament and the State Opening of Parliament that begins the next session. The average length of prorogation since 2000 is approximately 18 days. The parliamentary session may also be prorogued before Parliament is dissolved. The power to prorogue Parliament belongs to the monarch, on the advice of the Privy Council. Like all prerogative powers, it is not left to the personal discretion of the monarch but is to be exercised, on the advice of the prime minister, according to law.
On 28 August 2019, the Parliament of the United Kingdom was ordered to be prorogued by Queen Elizabeth II on the advice of the Conservative prime minister, Boris Johnson—advice which was later ruled unlawful. The prorogation, or suspension, of Parliament was to be effective from some point between 9 and 12 September 2019 and would last until the State Opening of Parliament on 14 October 2019. As a consequence, Parliament was suspended between 10 September and 24 September 2019. 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 the 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.
R (Miller) v The Prime Minister and Cherry v Advocate General for Scotland, also known as Miller II and Miller/Cherry, were joint landmark constitutional law cases on the limits of the power of royal prerogative to prorogue the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Argued before the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in September 2019, the case concerned whether the advice given by the prime minister, Boris Johnson, to Queen Elizabeth II that Parliament should be prorogued in the prelude to the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union was lawful.
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