Minister in United Kingdom

Minister Meaning in Politics

Description of Minister published by Mona Chalabi: The government is made up of 121 ministers who either come from the House of Commons or the House of Lords. Most are in charge of a specific government department — for example, the minister in charge of the Department of Health is known as the secretary of state for health (or often, more simply, as the health minister). The four most senior positions in British politics are known as great offices of state; they are the prime minister, chancellor of the Exchequer, foreign secretary and home secretary. The chancellor of the Exchequer is the finance minister who heads up the Treasury and is responsible for preparing and presenting the government budget. The foreign secretary handles British relations with foreign countries, as well as business with the Commonwealth of Nations and the overseas territories. The home secretary handles all internal affairs for England and Wales.

Concept of Minister

The following is an old definition of Minister [1], a term which has several meanings:1. An officer of a court charged with the execution of processes. Ministerial. Done or executed, or serving, under the authority of, or in obedience to, another person as superior: as, a ministerial – act, duty, office, officer, trust, writ. Opposed to judicial: involving the exercise of discretion. A ministerial act is one which a person performs in a given state of facts, in a prescribed manner, in obedience to the mandate of legal authority, and without regard to, or the exercise of, his own judgment upon the propriety of the act to be done. As, the act of bringing a party into court; selecting jurors; delivering a patent to land after the right thereto is complete. A ministerial duty, the performance of which may, in proper cases, be required of the head of a department of government, by judicial process, is one in respect to which nothing is left to discretion. It is a simple, definite duty, arising under conditions admitted or proved to exist, and imposed by law. See Execution, 3, Writ of; Judge; Officer; Sheriff; 2. A person ordained to preach the gospel. See Ordain. 3. In laws respecting foreign relations, a person invested with and exercising the principal diplomatic functions. ” The President, . shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls. . .” roreign minister. In the diplomatic sense, a minister who comes from another jurisdiction or government. The modern law of nations recognizes a class of public officers, who, while bearing various designations, chiefly significant in the relation of rank, precedence, or dignity, possess in substance the same functions, rights, and privileges, – being agents of their respective governments for the transaction of diplomatic business abroad, possessing also such powers as their respective governments may please to confer, and enjoying, as a class, established legal rights and immunities of person and property in the governments to which they are accredited as the representatives of sovereign powers. Disregarding questions of dignity, these diplomatic agents might all be denominated ambassadors, because they are immediate officers of the sovereign; or envoys, because they are persons sent; or ministers, because engaged in public service or duty; or procurators, because they are the proctors of their respective governments; or legates, because officially employed as the substitute of the superior; or nuncios, or internuncios, because they are messengers to or between governments; or deputies, because they are deputed; or commissioners, because they hold and discharge commissions; or chargis d’affaires, because they are charged with business; or agents, because they act for their governments. All these, and other designations of public ministers, are found in the history of modern negotiations, the name having no fixed relation to the functions or powers, or true nature of the office. In the simple indication of duties these public ministers would be divisible into three subdivisions of differences: ministers, representatives, and agents; ordinary, and extraordinary, that is, special; resident, and non-resident or ti’ansient; and plenipotentiary, and not plenipotentiary or with limited powers. But, in process of time, sometimes to flatter the pride of the sovereign represented, or that of the representative, or that of the government addressed; at other times to indicate shades of differences in functions, or in the place or manner of exercising them, and for other causes, arbitrary and artificial distinctions have grown up, in the use of titles, or names, which for’ the most part are independent of, or absolutely contrary to, the truth and substance of the things they pretend to designate. Thus it is that ” ambassador,” in origin the most equivocal of all the titles – for ” ambascia ” is ” offlcium vel ministerium quodcunque, nobile et iguobile,” and ” ambisciata ” at this day is any message, though borne by a house- hold servant – lias come, notwithstanding its humble origin, to designate a diplomatic agent of the highest rank in the class, because taken to be the most direct representative of the sovereign; in this, reviving its original use of the personal client or agent of the chief or prince. Thus it is that the Papal See appoints peculiar ministers assumed to belong to the highest rank, under the name of “legate ” or ” nuncio,” both in nature as ordinary, and the latter as humble, as any in the whole category. . Thus it is that the ordinary ” envoy,” or agent of regular and ordinary functions, is by mere titular exaggeration turned into “envoy extraordinaiy,” while another agent, who is no more a resident minister than he, and just as much an ” extraordinary ” envoy, is denominated merely a ” minister resident.” Thus it is, also, that in one of the varieties of agents, to “envoy extraordinary,” which is false, is added “minister plenipotentiary,” which is inexact in fact and by specialty of application; for it is not usual to give any diplomatic agent general ” plenipotentiary ” powers, but limited ones; and such powers, whatever they may be, as are given to envoys ordinary and extraordinary are frequently given to commissioners, minister resident, or even chai’gfis d’affaires. And thus it is that ” charges d’affaires,” in itself quite as general as any title, and often borne by persons exercising as high functions as any other, has settled into the designation of a mere provisional officer, in dignity of the lowest rank. Thus, also, while “commissioner,” which in fact is more comprehensive than the others, like ” deputy,” when held by a person having foreign diplomatic functions, as distinguished from functions intemal or administrative, has come to have something of a specific meaning by reason of its vagueness, as implying a diplomatic agent whose functions are undefined as respects the nature of his powers or the place of exercising them, – the term has more commonly been held to denote a minister the range of whose duties and powers is not confined to a particular court and does not depend on his presentation there. The Constitution, specifying “ambassadors” as examples of a class, empowers the President to appoint these and other ” public ministers,” that is, any such officers as by the law of nations are recognized as “public ministers,” without making the appointment of them subject, lilie ” other (non-enumerated) officers,” to the exigency of an act of Congress. In a word, the power to appoint diplomatic agents, and to select any one out of the varieties of the class, accord- ing to his judgment as to the needs of the public service, is a constitutional function of the President, not derived from nor limitable by Congress, but requiring only the ultimate concurrence of the Senate; and so it was understood in the early practice of the government. The United States has never sent an ” ambassador.” The power to appoint a representative includes the power to remove him. ” In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls . . the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction.” The purpose was to keep open the highest court of the nation for the determination, in the first instance, of suits involving a diplomatic or commercial repre- sentative of a foreign government. This was due to the rank and dignity of such representatives. . . . They may sue in any court they choose ihat is open to them. As to consuls, the commercial representatives of foreign governments, the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court was made concurrent with the district courts. Congress may confer jurisdiction, in cases of consuls, upon the subordinate courts of the Union. See Alien; Araest,2(2, 3); Asylum; Consul; Exequator.

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Notes and References

1. Meaning of Minister provided by the Anderson Dictionary of Law (1889) (Dictionary of Law consisting of Judicial Definitions and Explanations of Words, Phrases and Maxims and an Exposition of the Principles Law: Comprising a Dictionary and Compendium of American and English Jurisprudence