
	Where results make sense

Topic: Ministerial responsibility

In the News (Sun 19 May 13)

EXECUTIVE POWER

Iran

ANALYSIS

Pakistan

Family compact

	Canadian Parliament - Printer-friendly - MSN Encarta
		Central to the concept of responsible government are the principles of ministerial responsibility.
		The second convention regarding collective ministerial responsibility is cabinet solidarity, which ensures that the government presents a unified stance when facing the opposition in Parliament.
		Each cabinet minister has individual ministerial responsibility, or is obliged to answer for the performance of the department he or she leads.
	encarta.msn.com /text_761553359___3/Canadian_Parliament.html (1326 words)

	Ministerial responsibility Encyclopedia (Site not responding. Last check: )
		Ministerial responsibility or Individual ministerial responsibility is a constitutional convention in governments using the Westminster System that a cabinet minister bears the ultimate responsibility for the actions of their ministry.
		Individual ministerial responsibility is not the same as cabinet collective responsibility, which states members of the cabinet must approve publicly of its collective decisions or resign.
		The reverse of ministerial responsibility is that civil servants are not supposed to take credit for the successes of their department, allowing the government to claim them.
	www.hallencyclopedia.com /topic/Ministerial_responsibility.html (579 words)

	Ministerial responsibility - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Ministerial responsibility or Individual ministerial responsibility is a constitutional convention in governments using the Westminster System that a cabinet minister bears the ultimate responsibility for the actions of their ministry.
		Individual Ministerial responsibility is not the same as cabinet collective responsibility, which states members of the cabinet must approve publicly of its collective decisions or resign.
		The reverse of ministerial responsibility is that civil servants are not supposed to take credit for the successes of their department, allowing the government to claim them.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Ministerial_responsibility (506 words)

	MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY
		Ministerial responsibility is the convention that a minister is answerable to Parliament for the conduct and actions of his or her ministry's personnel.
		Originally, the ministerial responsibility was quite strictly imposed on a minister and resignation might be demanded even where the minister did not have, and could not reasonably have been expected to have, knowledge of improper or negligent acts or omissions by officials.
		It highlights the mistake of concentrating almost exclusively on ministerial resignation as a mechanism for enforcing government accountability, and of overlooking explanatory accountability as a core tenet of the doctrine of ministerial responsibility.
	sociologyindex.com /ministerial_responsibility.htm (962 words)

	Andrew Norton » Blog Archive » What is ‘ministerial responsibility’?
		Ministers are responsible in the sense that they must answer questions in the Parliament and elsewhere on their policies and performance, but resignation or replacement of Ministers is a matter of political judgment, not principle.
		If a minister is sacked/resigns in direct response to a scandal, that’s a major admission of failure by the government, and a good round of talking points in the press for a week.
		Far more sinister than dodging responsibility for the public servants’ actions, though, is the way that this government in particular has gone out of its way to use advisers as a barrier between themselves and the public servants - precisely in order to avoid accountability.
	andrewnorton.info /blog/2007/11/12/what-is-ministerial-responsibility (2777 words)

	Political and Criminal Responsibility, vol. 6.4
		According to the classical doctrine of ministerial responsibility the minister is responsible for acts of the King, for his own acts or omissions, as well as for the acts of civil servants working under his direction.
		It is important to note that responsibility regards the office of minister, whereas political confidence (as relevant in the rule of confidence) regards his or her person.
		This responsibility used to be self-evident, but in practice it is possibly the case that more or less autonomous acts of civil servants, and the restructuring of the civil service in order to meet modern organisational and political requirements and insights, have done much to undermine classical structures of political responsibility.
	www.ejcl.org /64/art64-18.html (7614 words)

	Review of the Responsibilities and Accountabilities of Ministers and Senior Officials - Meeting the Expectations of ...
		This review of the doctrine and practice of ministerial responsibility was conducted in response to direction from the Prime Minister to the President of the Treasury Board following the tabling of the Auditor General of Canada's November 2003 report.
		Responsibility, in addition to referring to the constitutional relationship between ministers and the House under responsible government, also refers to the sphere in which a public office holder (elected or unelected) can act, which is defined by the specific authority given to that office holder by law or delegation.
		The sanctions associated with ministerial responsibility are political, ranging from public embarrassment of a minister and consequent loss of political stature at one end of the spectrum to the potential fall of a government at the other.
	www.tbs-sct.gc.ca /report/rev-exa/ar-er01_e.asp (2543 words)

	Report 4 - Access to Information Review Task Force
		While asserting the fundamental constitutional and practical significance of the concept of ministerial responsibility, it is important to recognize that the concept is a complex one that is widely misinterpreted, both unintentionally and deliberately.
		Collective ministerial responsibility (sometimes referred to as Cabinet responsibility) means that ministers, in their role as Cabinet members, are responsible to Parliament for the policies and administration of the government as a whole.
		A different response to the threatened erosion of ministerial responsibility has been to argue that if the doctrine is weakening anyway or that it is a myth to start with, holding public servants directly accountable to parliamentary committees shouldn't be a significant concern.
	www.atirtf-geai.gc.ca /paper-ministerial-e.html (4018 words)

	Embassy of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, Washington, DC
		Ministerial responsibility is inseparable from the absence of responsibility of the Grand Duke.
		Responsibility for any measure taken in the Council is incumbent upon all the members of government involved in adopting such measure.
		The political responsibility of ministers may be subject to sanction consisting of the obligation to cease their functions when the Chamber no longer grants them confidence (motion of censure).
	www.luxembourg-usa.org /government.shtml (848 words)

	Evatt Foundation: News: Debauching Ministerial responsibility - 15 March 2002
		Ministerial responsibility has long been eroding in Australia as the executive has tightened its increasingly authoritarian grip on the Parliament.
		Three ways in which the doctrine of Ministerial responsibility ought to throw light on the issue of asylum seekers throwing - or not throwing - their children into the sea are worth briefly considering.
		Secondly, the doctrine of Ministerial responsibility demands the Prime Minister's and Immigration Minister's resignations because there is evidence that their departments have mishandled important information of great significance to the national interest.
	evatt.labor.net.au /news/12.html (1142 words)

	Ministerial responsibility -- a relic of the past
		Ministerial responsibility — a relic of the past
		There is the ancillary concept that Minister’s are also responsible for serious mistakes and acts of malfeasance within their ministries even though they are not personally guilty of any mistake or wrongdoing.
		It is this last branch of ministerial responsibility that seems to have gone out of fashion.
	canadafreepress.com /2005/weinreb061005.htm (682 words)

	on ministerial responsibility - st james ethics centre ... imagine a more ethical world
		While those in government rarely pass up an opportunity to claim responsibility for things that go right, it is also common in the political world for individuals in positions of authority to plead ignorance as a valid defence.
		The issue of responsibility – and especially ministerial responsibility – ought to be asked of all members of our federal and state governments, irrespective of their party affiliation.
		Accepting responsibility (even an unfair burden of responsibility) may be part of what it means to govern in a democracy; to serve the common good.
	www.ethics.org.au /about-ethics/ethics-centre-articles/ethics-subjects/politics/article-0471.html (1071 words)

	Ministerial Briefings 2002
		In addition, the Attorney-General has overall responsibility for the conduct of all legal proceedings involving the Crown, and can be expected to keep his or her fellow Ministers generally informed of the initiation, progress and outcome of such proceedings against or by the Government.
		It is the Law Officers' responsibility (in practice undertaken by the Solicitor-General) to bring proceedings for contempt of court in such cases.
		The Ministry of Justice is responsible for the passage of legislation and the Crown Law Office has been involved in consultations on the draft provisions of the Bill.
	www.beehive.govt.nz /briefings/justice/attorney_general/home.cfm (3349 words)

	2003 Report of the Auditor General of Canada - November - Chapter 2 - Accountability and Ethics in Government
		Accountability refers to a minister's obligation to explain and justify how he or she has discharged a responsibility and to accept the personal consequences for problems the office holder may have caused or that could have been avoided or corrected, had the office holder acted appropriately.
		Ministers are individually responsible for their personal acts, the general conduct of their departments, and acts done in their name (or left undone) by their departmental officials with or without their prior knowledge.
		However, ministerial responsibility does not mean that a minister will be required to resign whenever an administrative error is made in his or her portfolio.
	www.oag-bvg.gc.ca /domino/reports.nsf/html/20031102ce.html (7836 words)

	POST-MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY PROBITY BILL 16 OF 2007
		Be it enacted by His Excellency the Governor of Tasmania, by and with the advice and consent of the Legislative Council and House of Assembly, in Parliament assembled, as follows: Short Title 1.
		`ministerial adviser' means a person appointed as a member of staff of an office-holder, where that appointment is to the level, of a Senior Executive Officer.
		Ministers and ministerial advisers shall not allow themselves to be influenced in the conduct of their official duties and responsibilities by plans for or offers of employment or other remuneration for when they cease to be Ministers or ministerial advisers.
	www.austlii.edu.au /au/legis/tas/bill/prpb16o2007510 (493 words)

	washingtonpost.com: The Abu Ghraib Panic
		Given the fact that when they were in power Democrats had little use for the notion of ministerial responsibility, their sudden discovery of it over Abu Ghraib suggests that this has little to do with principle.
		And for the administration, the politics are simple: Cabinet members are there to serve the president, and if they become a political liability, they should fall on their sword for the greater good of the administration.
		Democrats will pocket the resignation, call it an admission of not just ministerial responsibility but material responsibility at the highest levels of the administration, and use that to further attack the president.
	www.washingtonpost.com /ac2/wp-dyn/A25769-2004May13?language=printer (724 words)

	: Ministerial responsibility or Individual ministerial responsibility is a constitutional convention in governments ...
		Ministerial responsibility or Individual ministerial responsibility is a constitutional convention in governments using the Westminster System that a cabinet minister bears the ultimate responsibility for the actions of their ministry.
		Individual Ministerial responsibility is not the same as cabinet collective responsibility, which states members of the cabinet must approve publicly of its collective decisions or resign.
		The reverse of ministerial responsibility is that civil servants are not supposed to take credit for the successes of their department, allowing the government to claim them.
	www.indias.com /wiki-Ministerial_responsibility (1312 words)

	Caribbean Net News: Commentary: Ministerial responsibility under the Westminster system
		The traditional example in the UK of official ministerial responsibility was the Crichel Down affair in 1954 when the Minister of Agriculture resigned despite the fact that all mistakes were made by civil servants without his knowledge.
		Since ministerial responsibility also applies to individual conduct, financial misbehaviour or personal misdemeanour, ministers are accountable to the prime minister for their personal and private actions that may or may not affect their official responsibilities.
		The political realities of ministerial performance mean that it is for a prime minister alone to judge whether their behaviour is fitting or appropriate.
	www.caribbeannetnews.com /news-325--6-6--.html (1211 words)

	Cabinet Office - Ministers
		Matters wholly within the responsibility of a single Minister and which do not significantly engage collective responsibility as defined above need not be brought to the Cabinet or to a Ministerial Committee unless the Minister wishes to have the advice of colleagues.
		Collective responsibility requires that Ministers should be able to express their views frankly in the expectation that they can argue freely in private while maintaining a united front when decisions have been reached.
		The Prime Minister is responsible for the overall organisation of the Executive and the allocation of functions between Ministers in charge of Departments.
	www.leeds.ac.uk /law/teaching/law6cw/min-7.htm (2269 words)

	Ministerial Records Regimes in Canadian Jurisdictions
		While it is beyond the scope of the study to attempt accounting for the deeper origins of the various systems in place, it is worth noting that their diversity is as broad as that distinguishing the political and legal cultures, and the archival traditions, distinctive to Canada’s regions, provinces, and territories.
		For those interested in the proper disposition of ministerial records as public records, it is difficult to have much sympathy for the view that scheduling authority should be limited because the Cabinet requires secrecy in order to meet government responsibility to the public.
		However, "ministerial offices" are equivalent to bodies referred to by other terms in other jurisdictions (e.g., "department," "agency," "government institution," etc.) in that the BC laws explicitly make reference to the bodies within the executive branch—not to the offices of ministers in particular.
	aabc.bc.ca /aabc/newsletter/10_4/ministerial_records_regimes_in_c.htm (2916 words)

	Good timing at John Quiggin
		The Westminster doctrine of absolute ministerial responsibility should be restored with full rigour, but it should apply only to the actions and omissions of ministerial offices and Departmental secretaries.
		It might be unfair for a Minsiter to be strictly responsible for the acts of public servants that he may not have conrfidence in and cannot sack except for some limited causes.
		Typically in a ministerial office the senior adviser/chief of staff would go through the incoming correspondence - letters from the public, from other ministers, departmental briefs, invitations to functions etc - daily and sort out the ones that need to be brought to the minister’s attention.
	johnquiggin.com /index.php/archives/2006/03/03/good-timing (5185 words)

	BCPolitics - BC News and Political Commentary
		On August 4, 2001, Collins, as Minister responsible, began second reading on the "Balanced Budget and Ministerial Responsibility Act (Bill 4)".
		Ministerial Assistants regularly act on behalf of their Minister; Ministers must be accountable for their assistants.
		Accountability and responsibility are fine terms in the abstract; what counts is how their definitions are revealed by the actions of a government under stress.
	www.bcpolitics.ca /left_ministerial_responsibility.htm (306 words)

	A test case for representative democracy - Letters - Opinion - theage.com.au
		THE Parliament and public is starting to see the Repeal of Ministerial Responsibility for RU486 bill not as a blow struck for abortion rights, but as a lazy dereliction of duty.
		It would then be possible to remove the many experts and bureaucrats who are now obstructing exercise of ministerial responsibility in the health sector, thus saving vast amounts in salaries and consulting fees.
		Ministerial responsibility demands that ministers should not be able to shield themselves with ignorance.
	www.theage.com.au /news/letters/a-test-case-for-representative-democracy/2006/02/09/1139465791113.html (1922 words)

	Ancient Ministerial Responsibility: Westminster Crown and History (Site not responding. Last check: )
		The modern doctrine of ministerial responsibility can hardly be more fully stated in the same number of words, though of course all that was implied in it was not yet seen.
		An illustration of the emerging difference between modern ministerial responsibility and its ancestral form– one which shows the way the ancient version remained for the reserve powers after it had fallen obsolete for government policy– was provided by the effective dismissal of the Melbourne ministry by William IV in December 1834, triggering a general election.
		Author: Although the Westminster system is now profoundly democratic in conception, with the government’s policies devised by the elected representatives of the people, and although the modern form of ministerial responsibility obscures its ancestry, relics of its ancestral form remain and retain their validity for the particular narrow purpose they possess in the modern world.
	www.sovereignpeople.com /voices.htm (4936 words)

	Ridgecrest Staff Members
		His responsibilities at Ridgecrest include planning, leading, and supervising in the areas of Public Relations, Assimilation, assistance to the Senior Pastor as well as other various responsibilities.
		Charles' responsibilities as Minister of Administration include: responsibility for all church support services, supervision of financial services and supervision of operations and maintenance of the church facilities.
		Tim's responsibilities include preparing, leading, and supervising the various music ministries of RBC as well as leading the Ridgecrest family to worship God through music.
	www.rbcdothan.org /Staff (919 words)

Try your search on: Qwika (all wikis)