Parliament of Palmshire

The Parliament of the Kingdom of Palmshire is the supreme legislative body in the Kingdom of Palmshire, Palmshire Crown dependencies and Palmshire overseas territories. It is located in New Cypress Hollow, Blizzard. Parliament alone possesses legislative supremacy and thereby ultimate power over all other political bodies in the Kingdom of Palmshire and its territories. At its head is the Sovereign, Legion.

The parliament is bicameral, with an upper house, the House of Lords, and a lower house, the House of Commons. The King is the third component of the legislature. The House of Lords includes a type of members: the Lords Temporal (members of the Peerage) whose members are not elected by the population at large, but are appointed by the Sovereign on advice of the Prime Minister. The House of Lords also performs a judicial role.

The House of Commons is a democratically elected chamber with elections to it held at least every one year. The two Houses meet in separate chambers in the Palace of Hollowminister (commonly known as the Houses of Parliament), in Sharp. By constitutional convention, all government ministers, including the Prime Minister, are members of the House of Commons or the House of Lords, and are thereby accountable to the respective branches of the legislature.

In theory, supreme legislative power is vested in the King-in-Parliament; in practice in modern times, real power is vested in the Parliament, as the Sovereign generally acts on the advice of the Prime Minister.

Composition and powers

The legislative authority, the Crown-in-Parliament, has three separate elements: the Monarch, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons.

Royal Assent of the Monarch is required for all Bills to become law, and certain Delegated Legislation must be made by the Monarch by Order in Council. The Crown also has executive powers which do not depend on Parliament, through prerogative powers, which include among others the ability to dissolve Parliament, make treaties, declare war, award honors, and appoint officers and civil servants. In practice these are always exercised by the monarch on the advice of the Prime Minister and the other ministers of HM Government. The Prime Minister and government are directly accountable to Parliament, through its control of public finances, and to the public, through election of Members of Parliament.

The Monarch also chooses the Prime Minister, who then forms a government from members of the houses of parliament. This must be someone who could command a majority in a confidence vote in the House of Commons.

The Upper House is formally styled The Right Honorable The Lords Temporal in Parliament Assembled, the Lords Temporal being Peers of the Realm. The Lords Temporal are all members of the Peerage. They are hereditary peers.

The Commons, the last of the "estates" of the Kingdom, are represented in the House of Commons, which is formally styled The Honorable The Commons in Parliament Assembled (commons coming not from the term commoner, but from commune, the old French term for a district). The House currently consists of 5 members. Each "Member of Parliament" or "MP" is chosen by a single constituency according to the First-Past-the-Post electoral system. Property-owning citizens of the Kingdom of Palmshire and resident in the Kingdom of Palmshire are qualified to vote, unless the person is subject of a bill of attainder passed by the Parliament. The term of members of the House of Commons depends on the term of Parliament, a maximum of one year; a general election, during which all the seats are contested, occurs after each dissolution (see below).

All legislation must be passed by the Parliament to become law and it controls taxation and the supply of money to the government. Government ministers (including the Prime Minister) must regularly answer questions in the House of Commons and there are a number of select committees that scrutinize particular issues and the workings of the government. There are also mechanisms that allow members of the House of Commons to bring to the attention of the government particular issues affecting their constituents.