TITLE:
Divine Right and Parliamentary Immunity: A Symbiotic Relationship
AUTHORS:
Ionuț Ciprian Negoiță
KEYWORDS:
Divine Right, Immunity, Parliament, Executive, Monarch
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.10 No.10,
September
7,
2022
ABSTRACT: This
article aims to investigate the transfer of sovereignty from the body
politic of the monarch onto the people, in order to explain—in an interdisciplinary
manner—the legal, political, theological and philosophical nature of parliamentary
immunity. It explores the interdependence between the mechanisms of power and
the principles of the divine right doctrine demonstrating the degree of sanctity
attached to parliamentary immunity. Based on (but not limited to) Kantorowicz’s
theory of the king’s two bodies, this study explores the embodiment of
the sacredness and inviolability of the monarch’s body politic in the political
power relations of the Parliament. The article goes above and beyond the
previous attempts at investigating this subject, and seeks to uncover to what
extent parliamentary immunity stems from, or embodies, the foundation of the
divine right of the monarch.