Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The United Kingdom—often treated as the prototypical parliamentary polity—and Japan, which developed its own variant under a constitutional monarchy, offer two instructive ways of coordinating parliament, cabinet, and courts. Both are parliamentary systems, but the institutional logics diverge. In the UK, executive authority is drawn from and remains politically dependent on Parliament, so policy‐making frequently proceeds through a fused executive–legislative channel. Judicial control over ministers is present yet circumscribed by the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty; courts typically scrutinize executive action without purporting to override primary legislation. Japan follows a more text-driven constitutional design: the Diet legislates, the Cabinet governs, and the courts exercise review within a clearer separation of functions. As a result, lines of authority are more formally segmented than in the British model. Taken together, the two cases illuminate how shared monarchical frameworks can yield different balances of integration and restraint.
Author: Qin Li
Institution: China People's Public Security University
Language: English
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4409775689