First of all, to understand the role of the opposition in the legal English system, we can describe the way of thinking in GB:
- Fair play: the winner respects the loser at the end of the elections; at the final result.
- Representative logical isn’t the Rousseau’s theory, which is about to crush the minority.
- There isn’t a real ideology break btw the 2 parties.
For example it’s not like in France; in England we considered that the British values are the most important so there is a profound respect.
It favored lot of things: there are no enemies.
I) A real institutional existence
- The opposition is recognized as formal element of the legal system: the chief of the opposition is known as the “Chief of the opposition of his Majesty”.
Thanks to its recognition it has a protocol rank that is why it is a real part of the system.
- It has real material means in order to exist & develop its action.
- At the Parliament, it implements whips (members of Parliaments who give instructions to the members of parliament without important qualifications) > The opposition reproduces the model of the majority composition.
Indeed, we can see that with the “Shadow Cabinet”: it’s the reproduction of the Ministerial Cabinet, the cabinet of the majority, which is created some days after the result of the election by the loser party: the leader of the minority party is going to name people (which represent the members of Parliament) like in the real cabinet.
This structure evenly has meetings in order to do criticize analyses of the debates of the ministerial cabinet.
We can see the “Shadow Cabinet” as an alternative team already established.
- Particularity of the British system: organized in rectangle that is to say that we have the ministerial cabinet in front of the opposition:
- “The question time” and “The opposition days”: examples of parliamentary sessions in which the opposition has the right to express itself.