The concept of the Royal Prerogative in parliamentary debates on the deployment of military in the British House of Commons, 1982-2003

Abstract

The article will discuss how one political key concept, the Royal Prerogative, was discussed in the British House of Commons in relation to the right to deploy and use armed troops abroad during the period 1982-2003, a time when the role of the British Parliament in decisions to deploy and commit troops to an armed conflict abroad was under extensive discussion in Parliament. This discussion began increasingly to address the state of the constitutional arrangements, more specifically the redefinition of the Royal Prerogative rights, the residual powers of the executive, as outdated in the understanding of modern representative democracy. The use of the concept was studied to reveal the attitudes towards the constitutional state of the country. However, the legal implications of the concept remained unchanged despite such criticism. The discussion on the role of Parliament consequently bypassed the concept and focused on the parliamentary convention defining the role of the House of Commons to emphasize a prior role instead of a retrospective role.