英语国家概况 Chapter 3 思维导图

高等学校英语拓展教育系列教程，英语国家概况，包括：Constitution:Made up of three main arts、Parliament、Government等板块。

Chapter3 Government and the Commonwealth

• Constitution:Made up of three main parts
  • Statutory law
    • Laws that have actually been passed by Parliament
      • The most important and take precedence over the others if there is a crash
  • Common law
    • Deduced from customs or legal precedents and is interpreted in court cases by judges
      • Never been precisely defined
  • Conventionns
    • Rules and practices which are not legally enforceable
      • Be regarded as vital to the working of the government
  • Division of powers among the legislature,the ececutive and the judiciary
• Parliament
  • It passes laws
  • It authorizes taxes and government budgets
  • It scrutinizes and investigates government administration
  • It debates current issues
• Government
  • The Legislature:Parliament
    • the Crown
      • the monarchy must consent to pass a law (a matter of course)
    • the House of Lords (Upper):Lords Spiritual, Lords Temporal and Law Lords
      • Archbishops,senior bishops,hereditary peers and life peers
        • To examine and revise bills from the Lower House
    • the House of Commons (Lower):consists of 650 members elected by the people from 650 constituencies. (MPs)
      • The party which holds the majority of "seats" in the House of Commons forms the government, with its leader acting as the Prime Minister
        • To makes laws for the UK
        • To control government's finances
        • To scrutinize government administration
  • The Executive
    • the Prime Minister
      • Responsible for all the governmental
      • Appoint government officials
      • Head of the Cabinet
      • Liaison between the Monarch and the government
    • the Cabinet ministers
      • Two principles
        • Collective responsibility
          • The Cabinet members must act unanimously
        • Individual ministerial responsibility
          • The ministers are responsible for the work of the departments that they are in charge of
    • assistants to the ministers
  • The Judiciary
    • Rather complicated in that England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland all have there own legal systems,with minor differences in law,organization and practice
      • the magistrates' court
      • the Crown Court
      • (Green dealt Civil cases)
      • the High Court
      • the Court of Apeal
      • (Pink dealt appeals)
      • the Supreme Court
• Political Parties:The power to run the country lies in the elected Parliament
  • The Conservative Party
    • Middle and uppermiddle class
      • center-right
        • Nationalization High taxation "From cradle to grave" The "Left"
  • The Labor Party
    • The poor in the society ; the working class
      • center-left
        • Free enterprise Privatization The "Right"
  • The Liberal Democrats
• Election
  • General Election: The term of each Parliament is five years.At the end of each term,a general election is held for a new House of Commons
    • First-Past-the-Post
• Basic Political System in the UK
  • Constitutional monarchy
  • Parliamentary democracy
  • United state
• The Structure of the Political System
  • Monarch : Head of State in the U.K. and Commonwealth
    • Legislative Parliament
    • Executive Cabinet
    • Judiciary Supreme Court