Journal Articles

Recall of MPs in the UK: ‘If I Were You I Wouldn't Start from Here’

---

The publication of a White Paper, Recall of MPs, and a draft Bill for pre-legislative scrutiny, by the UK Government in December 2011 was greeted with almost universal antipathy. In bringing forward the draft Bill Cabinet Office ministers declared their intention to ‘trigger a debate on what would be the best model for a recall mechanism’ and they expressed a willingness ‘to consider alternative models’ or even to contemplate‘adopting a completely different approach’. Yet, they made it clear any such proposals ‘must work within our unique constitutional framework’ and be ‘suitable for our system of representative democracy’. The objective of this article, therefore, is to do precisely what Cabinet Office ministers asked: to examine comparative experience and to apply lessons from that experience to the UK's ‘unique constitutional framework’. Three questions guide the analysis: first, what is the problem to be addressed in introducing recall?; secondly, what does comparative experience reveal about the operation of recall? and thirdly how unique is the UK's constitutional framework?

---

Availability

No copy data

Detail Information

Series Title

Parliamentary Affairs

Call Number

-

Publisher

Oxford : Oxford University Press., 2013

Collation

-

Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

0031-2290

Classification

-

Content Type

-

Media Type

-

Carrier Type

-

Edition

Volume 66 Issue 4 October 2013 p. 732-751

Subject(s)

-

Specific Detail Info

-

Statement of Responsibility

-

Other version/related

File Attachment

Comments

---

You must be logged in to post a comment