Parliamentary Supremacy Quotes

British democratic values are embedded in the primacy of parliament.

No foreign prince, person, prelate, state, or potentate, spiritual or temporal, shall at any time after the last day of this session of Parliament, use, enjoy, or exercise any manner of power, jurisdiction, superiority, authority, preeminence or privilege, spiritual or ecclesiastical, within this realm, or within any other your majesty's dominions or countries that now be, or hereafter shall be, but from thenceforth the same shall be clearly abolished out of this realm, and all other your highness's dominions for ever; any statute, ordinance, custom, constitutions, or any other matter or cause whatsoever to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding.

In a parliamentary democracy, it is the job of parliament to decide the law, not the government.

A parliamentary democracy that has developed its delicate balances over hundreds of years will not give up its sovereign rights.

The function of parliament is to hold the executive to account. We should never overlook the primacy of parliament.

The fact that the most arbitrary powers of the English executive must always be exercised under Act of Parliament places the government, even when armed with the widest authority, under the supervision, so to speak, of the Courts. …. Parliament is supreme legislator, but from the moment Parliament has uttered its will as lawgiver, that will becomes subject to the interpretation put upon it by the judges of the land.

I wish to make it clear from the onset that at the coming election I want support on no other understanding that the new Parliament is to destroy once and for ever, the power of the hereditary chamber to reverse the decisions of the representatives of the people.

In England Parliament is above the law. In America the law is above Congress.

The power of discretionary disqualification by one law of Parliament, and the necessity of paying every debt of the Civil List by another law of Parliament, if suffered to pass unnoticed, must establish such a fund of rewards and terrors as will make Parliament the best appendage and support of arbitrary power that ever was invented by the wit of man.

There should be some other provisions in the Constitution whereby if the Government is not functioning well, it can be dealt with. In a parliamentary democracy, this should be done only by Parliament. The prime minister should be answerable only to Parliament and it should only be Parliament that can install him or remove him.

I make no pretence at being well-versed in politics - it is all too often about personalities and emotion - but I do know a thing or two about our constitution, as I once trained to be a lawyer. Even a first-year law student learns that an overriding principle is that parliament is sovereign.

An independent House of Commons is as inconsistent to our Constitution as an independent, that is, absolute King.

Democracy is not an end but the means to the conquest of the new state. When the time comes, either Parliament submits or we will eliminate Parliament.

When was America emancipated? This kingdom has the sovereign, the supreme legislative power over America; this is granted; it cannot be denied: taxation is a part of that sovereign power, is one branch of the legislative; it is, and it has been, exercised over those who are not, and who never were represented: the Indian company; the merchants of London; the proprietors of stock, and men of great manufacturing towns; the palatinate of Chester; the bishopric of Durham, before they ever sent any representatives to parliament. Great Britain protects America; America is bound to yield obedience; if not, tell me when the Americans were emancipated The nation has run itself into an immense debt to give them protection; and now, when called upon to contribute to the public expense, an expense arising from themselves, they renounce your authority, insult your officers, and almost break out into open rebellion. The seditious spirit of the colonies owes its birth to the factions in this house. Gentlemen are careless of the consequences of what they say, provided it answers the purposes of opposition I have been abused as an enemy to the trade of America; I discouraged no trade but what was illicit, and what was prohibited by act of parliament.

The law of the realm cannot be changed but by Parliament.

If we vote to Leave and take back control, all sorts of opportunities open up. Including doing new free trade deals around the world, restoring Britain's seat on all sorts of international bodies, restoring health to our democracy and belief to our democracy.

Not that I distrust the King, but that I cannot give trust except in a parliamentary way.

In the 1770s the primary threat to American rights seemed to lie less with the King than with the Parliament that claimed a right to bind the colonists “in all cases whatsoever”.

It would be wholly wrong constitutionally for the unelected House of Lords to do anything, to kill anything of a financial nature that has been through the House of Commons not once but twice.

The President may be removed from office before his term expires if approved by a majority vote in a plebiscite called pursuant to a resolution adopted by three-fourths of the Members of Althingi [the Parliament.]

The House of Commons has the undoubted rights to expel members for misconduct. This is an absolute authority which cannot be challenged in any court, as it derives from the twin concept of the High Court of Parliament being the most senior court in the land and of each House's right to regulate its own affairs.

What happens when there is a conflict between the Scottish parliament, if it was established, and the Westminster parliament? Who is supreme?

The Stuart sovereigns of England steadily attempted to strengthen their power, and the resistance to that effort caused an immense growth of Parliamentary influence.

What a travesty it is that the high priests of Leave in 2016, who insisted to all of us that Brexit would mean a return to parliamentary sovereignty, are undermining and circumventing parliamentary sovereignty in order to deliver their hard Brexit.

No law shall be enforced without the approval of the Duma [parliament].