Er, no... constitutional monarchies don't work like that.
The Queen signing a bill is a formality, a legal fiction. In US terms it
is not like the US President signing a bill - more like the Library of
Congress filing a copy away somewhere. If she refused something bad
would probably happen, most likely to her. Last time anyone even
suggested the monarch trying to refuse to approve a bill was well over
a hundred years ago, last time anyone got away was it was... well, a
long time before that.
If a King or a Queen doesn't do what Parliament wants, they get rid of
them. Of the last 16 British monarchs 4 were deposed or set aside by
Parliament and 7 appointed by Parliament in some unusual way. On only 5
occasions has the monarch been succeeded by one of their own children
without any fuss.
In Belgium (whose constitution was originally based on Britain's because
Belgium was invented as an independent state by Britain in 1831 to make
sure that neither France nor Holland would control all the channel ports
& that Germany would have none of them) the king was presented with a
bill on abortion which he said he could not in conscience sign. So he
abdicated, Parliament appointed a regent who signed the bill, then
re-appointed the previous king, all in one day... Temporary
constitutional changes are a great thing. In Norway they amended the
constitution to bring back the death penalty for three weeks, tried
Quisling, executed him, & went back to the previous state of affairs.
And it is called the RIP bill. Someone in the legal drafting section of
the Home Office obviously has a sense of humour.
Mark Allyn wrote:
>
> I have read on the Standard that the U.K. has passed the
> so called ISP Wiretap act and it only has to be signed by
> the Queen in order to become law, but in fact it has NOT
> YET been signed by the Queen as of Saturday, July 30.
>
> I am curious if there is any hope in stopping this by
> us (or the ISP community) trying to convince the Queen
> to either veto the bill or suggest modifications.
>
> Would it be at all feasable for us (or the ISP's among us
> on this list) to email the Queen on this issue and espress
> to her (professionally of course) our concerns and propose
> suggestions for modifications.
>
> Perhaps if anyone knows the exact email address for the
> Queen to post it here on this list as well as other ISP
> related lists (nanog comes to mind)?
>
> Thank you all
>
> Love & Peace
>
> Mark Allyn
