Concept
The phrase is derived from John Hobhouse's use in 1826 in a debate in the British parliament of the term His Majesty's Loyal Opposition. It is intended to illustrate that Members of Parliament in a country's legislature may oppose the policies of the incumbent government—typically comprising parliamentarians from the party with the most seats in the elected legislative chamber—while maintaining deference to the higher authority of the state and the larger framework within which democracy operates. The concept thus permits the dissent necessary for a functioning democracy without fear of being accused of treason.
As Michael Ignatieff, a former leader of the loyal opposition in the Canadian House of Commons, said in a 2012 address at Stanford University: "The opposition performs an adversarial function critical to democracy itself... Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
Read more about this topic: Loyal Opposition
Famous quotes containing the word concept:
“Jesus abolished the very concept of “guilt”Mhe denied any cleavage between God and man. He lived this unity of God and man as his “glad tidings” ... and not as a prerogative!”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The concept of a mental state is primarily the concept of a state of the person apt for bringing about a certain sort of behaviour.”
—David Malet Armstrong (b. 1926)
“Behind the concept of woman’s strangeness is the idea that a woman may do anything: she is below society, not bound by its law, unpredictable; an attribute given to every member of the league of the unfortunate.”
—Christina Stead (1902–1983)