A Comparative Approach to Legislature and Executive

 UK, USA, Hungary

 Executive-legislative relations in democracies

 Parliamentary systems

 Presidential systems

 The combination of the two

 The systems

 Presidential systems:

 separate executive and legislative powers

 Hold separate elections for executive and legislative offices

 and operate with fixed terms of office

 Parliamentary systems

 Combine executive-legislative powers,

 Employ ‘no confidence’ vote procedures,

 https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2018/dec/12/tory-mps-trigger-vote-of-no-
confidence-in-may-amid-brexit-uncertainty-politics-live

 do not require fixed terms of office

 Government is accountable to Parliament

 Hungary

 Parliamentary representative democratic republic

 Has both a President and a PM
 President: head of state with mainly ceremonial functions
 Prime Minister: head of government
 Multi-party system
 Employs ‘no confidence’ vote,
 Requires fixed terms of office

 Executive power

 Hungary, Britain:

 Vested in the Prime Minister and the Cabinet (PM selects Cabinet ministers and has the
exclusive right to dismiss them)

 Collective responsibility (Cabinet)

 PMs enjoy a potential dominance – as leaders of the majority party in Parliament

 The president in Hungary has a largely ceremonial role but nominally he is the commander-
in-chief. Elected by the National Assembly for 5 years
 US:

 President: does not have to belong to the majority party (any natural-born citizen over 35)

 Has both constitutional and customary power, ability to pursuade to achieve

effectiveness>>can emerge as presidential law-maker

 CHECKS ON: US: judicial review (SCOTUS) – Hungary: Constitutional Court - Britain:
parliamentary sovereignty

 Legislative Power

 The UK and the US: bicameral institutions

 Differences in the role of committees: in the US function to kill proposed bills in many cases

 UK: House of Commons – expedite the passage of bills

 Hungary:

 Vested in both the parliament and the government (!)

 National Assembly: unicameral structure – extensive law-making activity

 Parliamentary committees (25) play a significant role in the supervision of the executive
branch

 Westminster

 3 parts: The Sovereign, The House of Lords, The House of Commons

 House of Commons: 650 MPs representing constituencies in the UK

 Sessions every day usually from 2-30 p.m. until 10.30. p.m. (except on Fridays) – mornings
spent on committee work, working on speeches, problems in the constituencies

 Rectangular shape: Gov – Opposition, no cross-benches

 House of Lords: supreme legislative body in historic times; under reform at the moment

 no fixed number of representatives – 1999: reform act passed 92 ‘temporary’ members

elected from the hereditary peers

 789 members: 26 Lords Spiritual (archbishops of York & Canterbury, senior bishops); 763
Lords Temporal (90 “hereditary” peers, rest: life peers)

 restricted legislative power: Acts of Parliament 1911, 1949 – cannot reject (only delay) bills;
no power with ‘money bills’

 role: control and check. warn rather than frustrate Government by amending bills

 http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Commons

 Congress

 Limited gov.: dividing authority between the central gov. and the individual states:
Federalism
 Separation of power among 3 branches, each with a separate function and checks-and-
balances

 Congress has 2 houses

 House of Representatives – elected for a 2 year term, number from each state based on
population of states

 Senate – 2 senators/state for 6 years

 Checks and Balances

 The Hungarian Parliament

 The National Assembly is a unicameral structure recently reformed (199 members elected
for 4 years)

 25 standing committees debate, report on introduced bills, supervise activities of ministers

 House committee: Speaker, deputy speakers, parliamentary group leaders

 Party factions have a decisive role in a number of important aspects of parliamentary work.
E.g. the nomination of officers and committee members of the Parliament, as well as
elaboration of the agenda of plenary sessions. MPs participate in the work of the committees
as delegates of the parliamentary factions.

 In permanent session – 2 regular sessions: in spring and in autumn

 Plenary sessions on Mondays (direct questions, interpellations) in the Hungarian Parliament

Building in Budapest (since 1902)

 Tuesday: committee meetings, interpellations

 Individual parliamentary control bodies – State Audit Office (the independent, financial and
economic control organization of the National Assembly), the ombudsman Commissioner for
Fundamental Rights and his or her deputies http://www.ajbh.hu/

 http://www.parlament.hu/fotitkar/angol/general_info.htm

 Electoral systems

 The UK

 constituencies to elect MPs (HC)

 Simple majority – first-past-the-post

 650 constituencies/MPs altogether (533 for England, 40 for Wales, 59 for Scotland, 18 for
Northern Ireland), but only 427 seats in the debating chamber

 The USA

 Winner-take-all. Primary elections: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_95I_1rZiIs

 For the President, for both houses, for state and local gov. offices

 Expensive campaigns
 Electoral College

 Electors: chosen by a "winner take all" formula >> The candidate winning a state gets all that
state's electoral vote.

 The body of electors that chooses the president and vice president. The electors are directed
by the Constitution to vote in their respective states, and Congress is authorized to count
their votes.

 Electors are chosen in a series of state elections held on the same day (election day). The
number of electoral votes of each state is the sum of its number of U.S. Senators (always two)
and its U.S. Representatives; the District of Columbia has three electoral votes.

 In each state, voters vote for a slate (list) of pre-selected candidates for Presidential Elector,
representing the various candidates for President.

 The Presidential Electors of each state (and DC) meet 41 days following the popular vote to
cast the electoral votes. The Electors ballot first for President, then for Vice President.

 “faithless electors”.

 To win, a presidential candidate must have a majority in the electoral college (min. 270)

 How the EC works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUS9mM8Xbbw

 2000 Election

 Bush and Gore were in a virtual dead heat in Florida, but all 27 of Florida's electoral votes
were going to go to either Bush or Gore.

 A candidate can win the popular vote and still lose the Electoral College: focusing on different
outcomes in large population states vs. small population states.

 Running up large margins of victory in the big states but losing many of the small states by
close votes >> can win more votes and still lose in the Electoral College. This is what
happened to Al Gore.

 Nationally, Gore won 560,000 more votes than Bush. Gore won two of the three largest
states by large margins, while Bush won his home state of Texas.

 Gore won California (54 electoral votes) by almost 1.3 million votes. Bush won Texas (32
electoral votes) by almost 1.4 million votes.

 But Gore won New York (33 electoral votes) by more than 1.5 million votes. He also won
Illinois (22 electoral votes) by approximately 570,000 votes. Gore would have benefited from
having his vote spread more evenly through the country. Bush's closer victories in many
smaller states gave him more electoral votes than Gore's larger margins of victories in
California, New York, and Illinois.

 http://bcove.me/ge0iv15n (http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/al-gore-hillary-clinton-
each-vote-matters-229625)

 2016 election

 http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-37889032
 http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/12/20/why-electoral-college-landslides-are-
easier-to-win-than-popular-vote-ones/

 Elections in Hungary

 Has been reformed

 mixed electoral system, which contains both a majoritarian and a proportional element, has
been retained, though with a slight shift towards the majoritarian principle

 two-round system replaced with one-round system

 number of seats and electoral districts reduced (the latter from 176 to 106)

 constituency boundaries have been redrawn

 three-tier system (single member constituencies; regional list and national list ) replaced with
a two-tier one (no national list)

 changes in the rules for candidate registration (e.g. candidates have to collect 1000
recommendation coupons to be able to run for election, as opposed to 750 under the old
law)

 Hungarian citizens living abroad granted voting rights (but they can only vote for party lists)

 Hungarian parliamentary election, 2014

 the first election according to the new Constitution of Hungary (The Fundamental Law of
Hungary went into force on 1 January 2012)

 new electoral law

 For the first time since Hungary's transition to democracy, the election had a single round.

 The voters elected 199 MPs instead of previous 386 lawmakers

 JUDICIAL POWER in US

 3 levels

 the Supreme Court (created in the Constitution) – 9 members, justices (appointed by the
president, „nine old men”), head of the court: Chief Justice.

 SCOTUS has the power to influence the law through a process called judicial review

 13 courts of appeal

 many federal district courts, special courts (Court of International Trade, eg)

 the President appoints federal judges; Senate has to confirm the nominations – keep their
jobs for life, can remain independent from gov.

 ROLE: interprets and applies the law by trying federal cases, can declare laws passed by
Congress and executive actions unconstitutional.

 Judicial Power UK

 Independent from the legislative-executive power since only 2009

  For centuries the House of Lords was the supreme court of appeal on points of law for
the whole of the UK in civil cases and for England, Wales and Northern Ireland in criminal
cases.
 clearest example of how the British constitution did not separate and indeed mixed the
three branches of the state. Senior Cabinet Minister, judge, head of the judiciary in E and
W, member of the legislative: Speaker of the HL
 From 1 October 2009 the judicial powers of the House of Lords transferred to the new
and separate Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.
 The Supreme Court comprises of 12 judges, known as "Justices of the Supreme Court",
they include a President and Deputy President, appointed by the Queen on the
recommendation of the Judicial Appointments Commission.
 Eleven of the 12 Law Lords in post in July 2009 became the first Justices of the Supreme
Court and will remain Members of the House of Lords. They are no longer entitled to sit
or vote in the Lords but return to the House of Lords when they retire as Justices.
 SC also has jurisdiction to resolve disputes relating to devolution in the United Kingdom
and concerning the legal powers of the three devolved governments (in Scotland, Wales
and Northern Ireland) or laws made by the devolved legislatures.
 https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/about-the-judiciary/the-judiciary-the-government-and-
the-constitution/jud-acc-ind/justice-sys-and-constitution/

 JUDICIAL BRANCHES IN HUNGARY

 A 15 member Constitutional Court has power to challenge legislation on grounds of

unconstitutionality. Members are elected for a term of 12 years by Parliament – 2/3
majority. Although its power is now curbed (2013 amendment to the FL removes its right to
strike out any laws that have already been enshrined in the FL)
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-21748878

 The President of the Supreme Court of Hungary and the Hungarian civil and penal legal
system he leads is fully independent of the Executive Branch.

 The Attorney General or Chief Prosecutor of Hungary is currently fully independent of the
Executive Branch, but his status is actively debated

 Several ombudsman offices exist in Hungary to protect civil, minority, educational and
ecological rights in non-judicial matters. They have held the authority to issue legally binding
decisions since late 2003