Royal assent



Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in others that is a separate step. Under a modern constitutional monarchy, royal assent is considered little more than a formality. Even in nations such as the United Kingdom, Norway, Kingdom of the Netherlands|the Netherlands and Liechtenstein which still, in theory, permit their monarch to withhold assent to laws, the monarch almost never does so, except in a dire political emergency or on advice of government. While the power to veto by withholding royal assent was once exercised often by European monarchs, such an occurrence has been very rare since the eighteenth century.

Royal assent is typically associated with elaborate ceremony. In the United Kingdom the Sovereign may appear personally in the House of Lords or may appoint Lords Commissioners, who announce that royal assent has been granted at a ceremony held at the Palace of Westminster for this purpose. However, royal assent is usually granted less ceremonially by letters patent. In other nations, such as Canada, the governor general may give assent either in person at a ceremony in the Senate or by a written declaration notifying Parliament of their agreement to the bill.

Relationship to royal consent
Royal Consent is distinct from royal assent. They are required only for bills affecting the royal prerogative and the personal property and "personal interests" of the monarch, and are granted before parliament has debated or voted to pass a bill. They are internal parliamentary rules of procedure that could, in principle, be dispensed with by parliament. Consent is always granted on the advice of the government; the monarch never takes the decision to withhold consent.

Canada
In Canada, royal assent is granted or withheld either by the sovereign or, more frequently, by the representative of the sovereign, the governor-general. As Canada is a federation, assent in each province is granted or withheld by the representatives of the sovereign.

For Canada, these are the lieutenant governors of the provinces. A lieutenant governor may defer assent to the Governor General, and the Governor General may defer assent to federal bills to the sovereign. If the Governor General of Canada is unable to give assent, it can be done by a Deputy of the Governor General of Canada, currently a justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. It is not actually necessary for the Governor General to sign a bill passed by a legislature, the signature being merely an attestation. In each case, the parliament must be apprised of the granting of assent before the bill is considered to have become law. Two methods are available: the sovereign's representatives may grant assent in the presence of both houses of parliament; alternatively, each house may be notified separately, usually by the speaker of that house. However, though both houses must be notified on the same day, notice to the House of Commons while it is not in session may be given by way of publishing a special issue of the Journals of the House of Commons, whereas the Senate must be sitting and the governor general's letter read aloud by the speaker.

Development
While royal assent has not been withheld for a bill backed by the government in the United Kingdom since 1708, it has often been withheld in British colonies and former colonies by governors acting on royal instructions. In the United States Declaration of Independence, colonists complained that George III "has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good [and] has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them."

Since the Balfour Declaration of 1926 and the Statute of Westminster 1931, all the Commonwealth realms have been sovereign kingdoms, the monarch and governors-general acting solely on the advice of the local ministers, who generally maintain the support of the legislature and are the ones who secure the passage of bills. They, therefore, are unlikely to advise the sovereign, or his or her representative, to withhold assent. The power to withhold the royal assent was exercised by Alberta's Lieutenant Governor, John C. Bowen, in 1937, in respect of three bills passed in the legislature dominated by William Aberhart's Social Credit party. Two bills sought to put banks under the authority of the province, thereby interfering with the federal government's powers. The third, the Accurate News and Information Bill, purported to force newspapers to print government rebuttals to stories to which the provincial cabinet objected. The unconstitutionality of all three bills was later confirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada and by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

Ceremony
In Canada, the traditional ceremony for granting assent in parliament was regularly used until the 21st century, long after it had been discontinued in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms. One result, conceived as part of a string of acts intended to demonstrate Canada's status as an independent realm, was that King George VI personally assented to nine bills of the Canadian parliament during his 1939 tour of Canada—85 years after his great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, had last granted royal assent personally in the United Kingdom. Under the Royal Assent Act 2002, however, the alternative practice of granting assent in writing, with each house being notified separately (the Speaker of the Senate or a representative reads to the senators the letters from the governor general regarding the written declaration of Royal Assent ), was brought into force. As the act also provides, royal assent is to be signified—by the governor general or by a deputy, usually a Justice of the Supreme Court.

The Royal Assent ceremony takes place in the Senate, as the Sovereign is traditionally barred from the House of Commons. On the day of the event, the Speaker of the Senate will read to the chamber a notice from the ecretary to the governor general indicating when the viceroy or a deputy thereof will arrive. The Senate thereafter cannot adjourn until after the ceremony. The speaker moves to sit beside the throne; the Mace Bearer, with mace in hand, stands adjacent to him or her; and the governor general enters to take the speaker's chair. The [Usher of the Black Rod is then commanded by the speaker to summon the members of parliament, who follow Black Rod back to the Senate, the Sergeant-at-Arms carrying the mace of the House of Commons. In the Senate, those from the Commons stand behind the bar, while Black Rod proceeds to stand next to the governor general, who then nods his or her head to signify Royal Assent to the presented bills (which do not include supply bills). Once the list of bills is complete, the Clerk of the Senate states: "in His [or Her] Majesty's name, His [or Her] Excellency the Governor General [or the deputy] doth assent to these bills."

If there are any supply bills to receive Royal Assent, the Speaker of the House of Commons will read their titles and the Senate clerk repeats them to the governor general, who nods his or her head to communicate Royal Assent. When these bills have all been assented to, the Clerk of the Senate recites "in Her Majesty's name, His [or Her] Excellency the Governor General [or the deputy] thanks her loyal subjects, accepts their benevolence and assents to these bills." The governor general or his or her deputy then depart parliament.