Especially in cases of Naturalization.
Like, if the monarch goes against the constitution, do you fight for the monarch, or defend the parliament/cabinet?
🤔
Edit:
UK Oath:
I, (name), swear by Almighty God that, on becoming a British citizen, I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles III, his Heirs and Successors, according to law.
Canada (A British Commonwealth) Oath:
I swear (or affirm) That I will be faithful And bear true allegiance To His Majesty King Charles the Third King of Canada His Heirs and Successors And that I will faithfully observe The laws of Canada Including the Constitution Which recognizes and affirms The Aboriginal and treaty rights of First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples And fulfil my duties as a Canadian citizen.
So…
🤔
I mean on the one hand, they are more democratic than the US, on the other hand, symbolically, it just feels wrong to me.
I don’t mind pledging allegience to a constitution, but to a monarch… is quite… uncomfortable, even if its a Constitutional Monarchy. 🤔
The key word in “constitutional monarchy” is “constitutional”, not “monarchy”. The monarch must follow the parliament’s requests, and not doing so is unconstitutional. Parliament is sovereign, at least in all of the countries that derive their monarchy from the UK’s.
Outside of the UK there wouldn’t be a fight anyway: in all the Commonwealth countries (except the ones that have since gone fully republican), the monarch has a representative called “the governor general” who is selected by the Parliament and recommended to the monarch at which point see above. The monarch has to take the advice of who is to be their governor-general. Issues basically never get to the monarch for them to mess anything up. The loyal-to-his-country deputy gets first crack at everything the monarch does in theory and has no reason to go against Parliament. If somehow the g-g or the king did speak out, it’d be a legal mess but everyone would ignore them. Practically we’d either get ourselves a new monarch or just say to hell with it and become a republic.
To answer your specific question then, yes, it’s pro forma. The monarch’s role is to be the embodiment of all legislative, judicial, and executive power, in a fairly close analog to what the American Constitution is. But the Constitution can’t exercise any of those powers and the monarch can’t either. It’s just a historical oddity that they can walk and talk, unlike a piece of paper.
In theory, the monarch for the uk does have some powers, it’s just they “passed down” the powers to the parliament. For any commonwealth it’s exactly as you kinda said a walking living constitution that can’t exercise any powers in commonwealth countries.
Will this prevent the UK from capitulation to the USA?