Or a passport, I believe.
Not much point having a piece of plastic requesting and requiring (or whatever the current wording is) people to let you pass on the request of HM The Queen when you are the Queen.
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I read something that said she’s actually exempt from the “rules of the road”. I don’t know if it’s true, but the idea of the Queen careening merrily over sidewalks and parks is a delightful picture.
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So I found this. It seems to support what might be suspected, that as head of state, she can’t be prosecuted. But unlike a President (fingers crossed), there’s no political precedent in place for removing her. Sure, Charles I was executed for treason, but only after a civil war and most of the parliament being kicked out by the rebels. Today though, my guess is a UK Monarch who behaved anything like Trump would trigger a constitutional crisis, though thankfully it’s hard to imagine that ever happening.
One interesting distinction is that the US President isn’t actually above the law, he or she simply can’t be prosecuted while in office due the potential for the disruption of a functioning government. But as best I can tell, the UK Monarch, being a sovereign in his or her own right (as opposed to merely head of a sovereign nation) actually can’t break the law because nothing they do can be deemed technically illegal. All the same, the distinction and reasoning behind it is probably academic since the office is held for life. And, as I said, I imagine this would have severe limits in the modern Western World were a monarch to test it, and wouldn’t require anything so bloody as a civil war to resolve the next time around.
Fascinating stuff.
I knew I shouldn’t have done it but… the comments section to that article…
Must resist urge to scratch out my eyes…
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Am I right that the President gets to pardon him or herself for any crimes committed?
Yes, under English legal theory since the Crown makes the law and the courts administer justice in place of the Crown, the Monarch is hardly going to convict themselves so why bother allowing anyone to prosecute - especially since it would be the Crown that would have to take the decision to prosecute the Monarch.
You’d end up with a legal system like Djelibeybi otherwise.
Other fun facts - the Monarch is never a minor and never dies…
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Nixon is said to have considered pardoning himself before resigning, and his lawyer told him he could, but he decided against it (though he pardoned many of his co-conspirators). Other lawyers have since said a self-pardon would not hold up, that the Supreme Court would likely find it unconstitutional for the same reason someone cannot be the judge or jury in their own trial, even though there’s no explicit wording forbidding self-pardons in the part of the US Constitution that empowers the President to issue them.
However, Tricky Dick got around this in the simplest way possible. Nixon had his vice president and successor, Gerald Ford issue a full pardon to him upon assuming the office, even though Nixon hadn’t even been indicted. It’s worth mentioning that a presidential pardon can be issued even before charges have been brought, but not for prospective crimes the recipient might later commit, only for crimes they have or may have committed before the pardon was issued.
Basically, all Trump has to do is get Mike Pence to pardon him if he resigns or Congress removes him through impeachment. Who says veeps aren’t useful?
What would be interesting is, if Trump stays in office for his full four-year term and then loses re-election, his successor won’t be interested in pardoning him, so he could then conceivably be indicted and prosecuted as a private citizen after leaving office. I assume it would then come down to whether the statute of limitations for whichever crime(s) the ex-president is accused has expired. There’s no statute of limitations on treason, but it’s almost impossible to meet the evidence standards in a court of law, hence treason rarely being prosecuted.
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Thank you. I thought that was about the state of affairs.
Vaguely bringing the thread back on topic, in English law it is technically still treason to ‘violate’ the Heir Apparent’s wife.
We only got rid of the death penalty for treason (and piracy) in 1998 so it must have made being Diana’s lover a bit more exciting/pants-wettingly terrifying.
We’re a messed up country in so many ways.
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The queue forms behind us 
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