Many nations around the world use a parliamentary system of government. This type of representative government is based on the principle that all members of the legislative body, or parliament, are elected by the people. The parliament members then elect a leader, called the Prime Minister. The leader then selects the rest of the executive cabinet, which is made up of government ministers. The Parliament may be bicameral, with two chambers, or unicameral, with one parliamentary house.
In a parliamentary system, a government can lose its democratic legitimacy by failing to win the confidence of the parliament. This is known as a “no-confidence” vote. The losing government must call for new elections to establish a new parliament. In this way a parliamentary system is more responsive to popular influence than the presidential alternative. However, critics of the parliamentary system argue that it is not really a democracy because it lacks fundamental characteristics that distinguish a true democracy from non-democracies, such as constitutionalism, representation based on democratic elections and guaranteed rights to liberty for all citizens.
In most parliamentary democracies, the head of state (monarch in Great Britain and New Zealand, governor general in Australia) has a limited veto power over legislation passed by parliament. However, this check is rarely used, and in these countries a law passed by parliament takes precedence over any previous laws that have not been given royal assent by the head of state. Other parliamentary democracies such as Sweden and Norway allow the government to call early elections, though only within an established limit set by their constitutional systems.
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