Council of Ministers

“ There are at present, in addition to the ministry of state, eight ministerial portfolios, i.e., Foreign Affairs, Justice, Worship and Instruction, Agriculture, Labor, Finance, Defense, and Commerce, Navigation and Industry. All ministers are regularly members of the Storthing, though by the constitution the crown is authorized for special reasons to add to the Council members who possess no legislative seats. The heir to the throne, if eighteen years of age, is entitled to a seat in the Council, but without vote or responsibility. ”

“ The Ministerial Council shall be formed of the Foreign Ministers of the member states or other delegated ministers. The Council Presidency shall be for the member state, which presided the last ordinary session of the Supreme Council, or if necessary, for the state which is next to preside the Supreme Council. ”

“ At a sitting of the House of Representatives, if any Minister is simultaneously also a member of the House, that Minister shall not cast a vote on a matter connected with the holding of office, the performance of duties or the having of any interest in such matter. ”

“ The Prime Ministers and Ministers shall not be Members of the National Administrative Reform Assembly, and shall not be regular public servants or officials of state agencies or state enterprises with regular positions or monthly salaries or hold any position in an enterprise which runs a business for the making of profits. ”

“ Certain parts of government belong so essentially to the business of the whole that they would not come under the review of any special council. The Minister, or Ministers, in charge of these would be responsible to none but the Nation, for they would directly concern the Nation as a whole and not in any one of its parts. The chief of these of course is finance. The only council which the Minister of Finance could consult or advise would be the Assembly of Representatives, as drawn directly, well or ill, from the people's choice. ”

“ A Minister has the right to attend and give statements of fact or opinions at a sitting of the House and, in the case where the House of Representatives or the Senate passes a resolution requiring attendance at a sitting for any matter, is obliged to attend thereat, and privileges as provided in section 130 shall apply mutatis mutandis. ”

“ If there is no such other Minister the President shall himself exercise perform and discharge the powers, duties and functions of the Cabinet of Ministers until the conclusion of the General Election. ”

“ Each Minister not a member of the Parliament/Oireachtas shall be the responsible head of the Executive Department or Departments as head of which he has been appointed as aforesaid; Provided that should arrangements for Functional or Vocational Councils be made by the Parliament/Oireachtas these Ministers or any of them may, should the Parliament/Oireachtas so decide, be members of and be nominated on the advice of such Councils. ”

“ Upon this the Hungarian ministers resigned, but the names submitted by the president of the council, at the demand of the king, were not approved of for successors. ”

“ The ministers, and not the sovereign, may be held to account by parliament for every executive act performed, and it is but logical that they should control the time and tenor of such acts. It falls very generally to the prime minister to speak for and otherwise represent the ministerial group. On the whole, however, it accords best with both law and fact to consider the executive under the working constitution as consisting of the crown as represented and advised by the ministry. ”

“ Let the Government in power cause the Parliamentary Representatives to understand that they are not to consider themselves entitled to direct the policy of the Cabinet, that Ministers are not their servants, and that a Minister may not be dismissed at their pleasure without necessarily dismissing the whole Cabinet. Let the nation prostrate herself in their temples and implore God to forgive her crimes and errors ”

“ Thus has the nation been taught to expect, that the counsels of the cabinet should be dispersed in the publick papers; that their governours should declare the motives of their measures, and discover the demands of our allies, and the scheme of our policy; and that the people should be consulted upon every emergence, and enjoy the right of instructing not only their own representatives, but the ministers of the crown. ”

“ Despite the fact that during upwards of two hundred years the sovereign has not attended the meetings of the cabinet, and so is deprived of the opportunity of wielding influence directly upon the deliberations of the ministers as a body, the king keeps in close touch with the premier, and cabinet councils at which important lines of policy are to be formulated are preceded not infrequently by a conference in which the subject in hand is threshed out more or less completely by king and chief minister. ”

“ If the supreme council once begins to encroach upon the executive fields of government by interferings with the conduct of work in the separate Ministries, by advising as to appointments to be made under the rank of Minister of State, or in any other way taking part in the executive functions of government, it will thereby at once lessen the efficiency and increase the difficulties of every Minister. ”

“ As has been pointed out, the uses of the crown are by no means wholly ornamental. None the less, the actual executive of the nation is the cabinet. It is within the cabinet circle that administrative policies are decided upon, and it is by the cabinet ministers and their subordinates in the several departments that these policies, and the laws of the land generally, are carried into effect. On the other side, the cabinet members not only occupy seats in one or the other of the houses of Parliament; collectively they direct the processes of legislation. ”

“ Of these Ministers, those of Justice, Interior, Agriculture, Education, Public Works and Arts, were elected by the Senate, while the King would appoint the Ministers of War, Finance, and Foreign Affairs ”

“ All subordinate public officers who are not appointed by some mode of public competition should be selected on the direct responsibility of the minister under whom they serve. The ministers, all but the chief, will naturally be selected by the chief; and the chief himself, though really designated by Parliament, should be, in a regal government, officially appointed by the crown. ”