ShareLUXEMBOURG (AFP) - Luxembourg was plunged into a constitutional crisis on Tuesday after the sovereign, Grand Duke Henri, threatened to block a law legalising euthanasia if it is passed by parliament.
Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker responded by saying the country would change its constitution to reduce the powers of the sovereign, who traditionally stays above the political fray.
"Because we wish to avoid a constitutional crisis, but at the same time respect the opinion of the Grand Duke, we are going to take out the term 'approve' from article 34 of the constitution and replace it with the word 'promulgate,'" said Juncker, a move which would scrap the sovereign's formal power to block laws.
The Last Judgment
4 days ago
5 comments:
Thanks Elena-Maria. Richard
+JMJ+
Pardon my language, Elena, and of course you don't have to print this comment, but that Prime Minister is a weenie! >=(
If it's absolute power he wants, then he should know about the absolute corruption that comes with it.
I seem to recall that a few years ago the King of the Belgians temporarily abdicated for 24 hours so as not to have to approve his country's abortion legislation.
As an Englishman, I can't help wondering what our own Queen (whose values are, I understand, very much those of conservatice Protestantism) thinks of the atrocious Human Fertility and Embryology legislation which was recently passed by Parliament.
I'm certain that, if she were to refuse to sign such legislation, the resulting constitutional crisis would result in the political left agitating - possibly successfully - for the abolition of the monarchy, which would be a great tragedy for our country.
Maybe, though, a point will eventually be reached when it's better for our monarchy to go down in a blaze of glory while defending a fundamental moral and religious principle than to continue in an increasingly marginal role within a political establishment that is republican and secular-humanist in all but name.
As one who finds it profoundly alienating and unsatisfactory to live in a republic, I disagree with Mark's final paragraph. I would much rather Europe's ten remaining monarchies survive, even in their current emasculated forms, than risk precipitating their own destruction, leaving their monarchist subjects essentially without a country they can love. I know that I for one would not be able to regard a British republic with anything other than the utmost loathing. If (God forbid) the monarchy were abolished and replaced by a president, a British Christian with my passionately monarchist views would find it painful, perhaps impossible, to fulfill Christianity's injunction to honour and pray for those in authority, and would therefore be forced into a state of sin, unless he were able to emigrate to a surviving monarchy. (I don't love the American republic, but I also don't hate it the way I would hate a "British" republic or the way I do hate the French and Austrian republics.)
I respect the convictions of my Roman Catholic friends on life issues, and even share them to some extent, but ultimately, I'm afraid I'm a monarchist first, and I respect that today's constitutional monarchs are obliged to represent ALL of their subjects, including those who have other views on these controversial issues. I am not a fan of democracy, and would prefer real rule by Christian monarchs, but now that democracy has been established throughout Europe, it is the duty of Catholics opposed to abortion and euthanasia to work through the democratic process like everyone else. I don't like it at all, but that's the way it is. At least in a constitutional monarchy, a monarchist can still work within the system to address other issues. But a republic excludes people like me--incapable of feeling a true sense of patriotic belonging without being at least nominally subject to a hereditary monarch--from the system entirely.
That's outrageous. Some people don't seem to understand how important the monarchy is to a country. Steps like this by a prime minister are the first steps of some sort of political move above them, like a very sneaky way of giving himself more power. I don't trust that at all. Hopefully the millitary stay loyal to their true leaders incase of any major developments from this stupid man.
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