SOVEREIGNTY
DEFINITION
MEANING
KINDS OF SOVEREIGNTY
Sovereignty is “the supreme, irresistible,
absolute, uncontrolled authority in which the ‘jurist summit imperil reside”.
-Blackstone
MEANING
The term “Sovereignty”
has been derived from the Latin word “Superanus” which means supreme or
paramount. Although the term “Sovereignty” is modern yet the idea of
“Sovereignty” goes back to Aristotle who spoke of the “supreme power of the
state”. Throughout the Middle Ages, the Roman jurists and the civilians kept
this idea in their mind and frequently employed the terms “Summa” potestas and
“Plenitudo potestatis” to designate the supreme power of the state.
The terms “Sovereign” and “Sovereignty” was first used by the French jurists in the fifteenth century and later they found their way into English, Italian and German political literature. The use of the term “Sovereignty” in Political Science dates back to the publication of Bodin’s “The Republic” in 1576.
KINDS OF SOVEREIGNTY
1) Nominal arid Real
Sovereignty:
In ancient times many
states had monarchies and their rulers were monarchs. They wielded absolute
power and their senates and parliaments were quite powerless. At that time they
exercised real sovereignty. Therefore, they are regarded as real sovereigns.
For example, Kings were sovereigns and hence they were all-powerful in England
before the fifteenth century, in U.S.S.R. before the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, and in France before 1789. The state of affairs changed in England
after the Glorious Revolution in 1688.
Now the King is like a
rubber- stamp. The British king has a right to encourage, warn and advise his
Ministers or seek any information about the administration. Except for these
ordinary powers, all other powers of the British king are wielded by his
Ministers.
2) Legal Sovereignty:
Legal sovereignty is
the authority of the state which has the legal power to issue final commands.
It is the authority of the state to whose directions the law of the State
attributes final legal force. In every independent and ordered state, there are
some laws that must be obeyed by the people and there must be a power to issue
and enforce these laws. The power which has the legal authority to issue and
enforce these laws is legal sovereignty.
In England, the
King-in-Parliament is sovereign. According to Dicey, “The British Parliament is
so omnipotent legally speaking…. that it can adjudge an infant of full age, it
may attain a man of treason after death; it may legitimize an illegitimate
child or if it sees fit, make a man a judge in his own case”.
The authority of the
legal sovereign is absolute and the law is simply the will of the sovereign. Since
the authority of the sovereign is unrestrained, reserves the legal right to do
whatever he desires. It is the legal sovereign who grants and enforces all the
rights enjoyed by the citizens and, therefore, there cannot be any right
against him. The legal sovereign is, thus, always definite and determinate.
Only the legal
sovereign has the power to declare in legal terms the will of the stale. The
authority of the sovereign is absolute and supreme. This authority may reside
either in the monarch or in an absolute monarchy or it may reside in the body
of persons.
3) Political Sovereignty:
Dicey believes that “behind the sovereign which the lawyer recognizes, there is another sovereign to whom the legal sovereign must bow. Such sovereign to whom the legal sovereign must bow is called political sovereign. In every Ordered state the legal sovereign has to pay due attention to the political sovereign.
4) Popular Sovereignty:
Popular sovereignty
roughly means the power of the masses as contrasted with the Power of the
individual ruler of the class. It implies manhood, suffrage, with each
individual having only one vote and the control of the legislature by the
representatives of the people. In popular sovereignty, the public is regarded as
supreme. In ancient times many writers on Political Science used popular
sovereignty as a weapon to refute the absolutism of the monarchs.
According to Dr.
Garner, “Sovereignty of the people, therefore, can mean nothing more than the
power of the majority of the electorate, in a country where a system of
approximate universal suffrage prevails, acting through legally established
channels to express their will and make it prevail”.
5) Deo Facto and De Jure
Sovereignty:
Sometimes a distinction is made between the De Facto (actual) sovereignty and De Jure
(legal) sovereignty. A de jure sovereign is the legal sovereign whereas a de
factor sovereign is a sovereign that is actually obeyed.
In the words of Lord
Bryce, a de facto sovereign “is the person or a body of persons who can make his
or there will prevail whether with the law or against the law; he or they is
the de facto ruler, the person to whom obedience is actually paid”. Thus, it is
quite clear, that de jure is the legal sovereignty founded on law whereas dc
facto is the actual sovereignty.
The person or the body
of persons who actually exercise power is called the de facto sovereign. The de the facto sovereign may not be a legal sovereign or he may be a usurping king, a
dictator, a priest, or a prophet, in either case, sovereignty rests upon physical
power or spiritual influence rather than legal right.