Plan:
1. Introduction.
2. The
main part:
a)
a
system of power - what is it ?
b)
the
political system of Great Britain;
c)
the
comparison of British and Ukrainian political systems.
3. Summary.
Introduction
The State System of any
nation is not an artificial creation of
some genius or simply the embodiment of different rational schemes. It is
nothing else but a work of many centuries, a product of a national spirit, a
political mentality and the consciousness of people.
I have chosen the topic because of its obvious importance.
Ukraine is building a sovereign state and it is encounteing a lot of problems.
Ukraine is suffering an overall deep crisis, trying to set herself free from the persistent inheritance
of totalitarianism preying upon economic, politic, national self-consciousness.
There is no universally efficient remedy to help the Ukrainian society out of
this grave condition. The process of recovery will be long and arduous.
Moreover, the country’s eventual deliverance from totalitarian inheritance and
its harmonious entry into civilized world community remain for that matter,
hardly practicable at all, unless political culture is humanized, and political
education of such a kind propagated that would help society overcome the
backwardness, the pre-modernity of prevailing visions of justice, democracy,
law and order, and the relationship of the individual and the state.
It is quite clear that in the process of democracy
formation a lot of problems connected with it will inevitably appear. Many of
them already exist. In this solution, a considered usage of foreign experience
can help the Ukrainian community to optimize the processes essential for the
transitional period from one political system to another, and not to allow the
social prevailing tensions to develop into a national civil crisis. And it will
also help to save time and resources.
The Main Part.
A system of power is a complex of organically connected
and bonded together governmental bodies, establishments and persons given the
highest authority, and also political parties and organizations, directly
having the power and putting it into life. The sources of power in a
democratically organized community are its people, and its system. First of
all, key figures within this structure should be under control of the people.
This system is the core of legal functioning and serves as the foundation of
state and public life. Its main parts are legislative and executive power.
If we want finally to live as normal people, we should
seriously think which system of power we subject to and how is it possible to
improve it, how to make it suitable for the interests of our people and what
can be taken from foreign, world experience. But one of the main problems is
that we are not the only ones, who don’t have a good system of modern power.
Humanity hasn’t yet worked out a suitable and ideal system. That is why we
should build our own power by considering all positive and negative aspects of
the world’s system and our one. But we should not forget that a power works well
only when its authority is clearly and definitely determined.
Let’s compare our system of power with
the British one to see whether it is competent enough and how well organized
itis.
The Political System Of England
The organs of goverment in the United Kingdom of Great
Britian are:
1)
the legislature, which consists of the Queen in Parliament,
and is the supreme authority of the realm;
2)
the executive, wich consist of:
a)
the Cabinet and other ministers of the Crown, who are
responsible for initiating and directing national policy;
b)
Government departments, most of them under the control of
ministers, and all staffed by civil servants, who are responsible for
administration at the national level;
c)
local authorities, who administer and manage many services at
the local level;
d)
statutory boards, which are responsible for the operation of
particular nationalized industries or public services;
e)
shadow cabinet” which is the directing and leading body of
the oppositional group.
The most interesting and important aspect of the British
political system, its pecularity, lies in its division of powers.
It is common knowledge that Great Britain, having the
oldest Parliament in the world, has one of the most stable and effective
political regimes of our time. Its stability is mostly the result of the
division of powers, which, by the the way, is not the exeption from the general
rule.
The main idea of this variant lies in the following: the
principle of the demarcation (division) is combined with a principle of
interaction. And its principle is fixed in the British system of power not as
something abstract, but institutionally. I mean a special center, a linking
section, which brings together the legislating and executing powers, and at the
same time is the center of making important political decisions. Surely, it is
the Cabinet and its leader which are at the head of the whole executive system
of the state.
The main 4 principles of division of powers are:
1)
sovereignty of the Parliament, as the highest body of
political management;
2)
the leading role of the Cabinet and the government in the
legislative process;
3)
a strict Parliamentary and commitee control of the legislative
branch;
4)
a special role given to the State Machinery, which not only
executes the instructions, but also influences a political process.
So, as we see, the legislators provide the execution of
the laws and resolutions of the Parliament by controlling the State machinery,
and in its turn, the state machinery participates in the legislative process,
providing its preparatory stage (by doing a spade-work).
British Parliament.
The Comparison Of Two Political Systems:
Ukrainian And British Ones.
1. The first
distinction may seem to be the form of rule:
Ukraine is a respublic. And Britain, as you probably know,
is considered to be a parliamentary monarchy.
The Queen is the personification of the U.K. By law, she
is the head of the executive branch, an integral part of the legislature, the
head of the judiciary, the
commander-in-chief of all armed forces of the Crown and the temporal head of
the established Church of England. But in practice, as a result of a long
evolutionary process, these powers have
changed. Today, the queen acts only on the advice of her Ministers which
she cannot constitutionally ignore. In fact she reigns but she doesn’t rule.
However, the monarchy has a good deal more power than is
commonly supposed. There remain certain
discretionary powers in the hands of the monarch, known as the Royal
Prerogative.
2. The Ukrainian and the British Parliaments have at least four
similar functions:
a)
to work out legislation, including the creation of a budget;
b)
to control the government;
c)
to represent and respond to public opinion;
d)
to influence actively the people by acquainting them openly
with the facts, concerning the accepted desisions.
The difference lies in the electoral systems and the rules
for recalling the government.
But there is also one more remarkable peculiarity of the
Ukrainian Parliament: the political history of Ukraine does not know any potent
legislative bodies (we can hardly take into account the experience of the
Soviet Congress ).
3. Both Ukraine
and Britain are countries with the representative democracy (which means that
the people delegate power to the bodies, which act on their behalf).
The difference is, that
Britain has a parliamentary form of government, and Ukraine, in its turn, has a
so-called “semi-presidential” form. The main distinctions of this forms are
shown in the table, given below. The British parliamentary form The Ukrainian “semi-pesidential” form 1. The election solves two questions: On one hand, the forming of the Parliament. And on the other hand, the creation of the Government and different coalitions. 1. The election solves just one question: Either the problem of forming the Parliament or the creation of the Government. 2. The Government is formed only by the Parliament. 2. The Government is formed by both the President and the Parliament. 3. The executive Power is separated. 3. The executive Power is not separated.
4. Unlike
Britain, Ukraine has different bodies of legislative and executive power, and
one body doesn’t interfere with the activity of the other.
5. The negative
features of the British system may seem to be too much power in the hands of
Prime Minister and rather uncontrolled local government.
Summary
Having compared two political systems, I have come to the
conclusion that the form and the level of development of the systems are
influenced greatly by the history of the State. The second factor is that of
evaluationary progress, which usually improves the existing order and makes it
more democratic.
Having analysed two state systems, I have noticed the
tendency towards the reinforcement of
the executive power and a lessening of the legislative power. But still,
parliament remains an integral institution in a democratic society.
I have studied the British political experience concerning
the division of powers and I can say that with all its originality, the British
System is not something unique or exceptional. This system should be taken as
the foundation stone of the cooperation of two powers in countries with a
representative democracy.
The reason for the lasting discussion of this problem in
the Ukrainian Parliament lies not only in involving the interests of powerful
persons. Actually, it is the result of the “amateur” level to understand this
problem.
A list of used literature:
1.
Основи держави і права України, 1993
2.
M.Y.Mezey Comparative
Legislatures, Durham, 1979
3.
Политические исследования, Полис, 1992
4.
П.О.Бех Англійська
мова, Либідь, 1992
5.
A book of Britain,
Просвещение, 1977
6.
Деловая жизнь //
Правда, 1991
7.
Entony Sempson Anatomy
of Britain, 1992
8.
Мировая экономика и международные отношения, Наука, 1993
