Austria • The
self-elimination of the Austrian Parliament in 1933, when all three speakers of the
National Council resigned.
Engelbert Dollfuss stated the parliament had eliminated itself and could rule by decree. This was a step towards the one-party fascist state, the
Federal State of Austria.
Belgium • The
Royal Question over the status of king
Leopold III began when he acted against
ministerial advice during the
1940 Nazi invasion and refused to join
the government in exile. Deported to Germany before
Belgium's 1944 liberation, Leopold's return was narrowly approved in
a 1950 referendum but a subsequent general strike prompted him to abdicate the following year. • In 1990,
King Baudouin refused routine
Royal Assent to the law on
abortion in Belgium. The issue was resolved by (constitutionally but controversially) having Baudouin temporarily declared incapable of reigning, the Council of Ministers giving assent as provided for in the
Belgian Constitution, and Baudouin declared capable again.
Denmark • The
Easter Crisis of 1920, when
King Christian X of
Denmark dismissed the country's cabinet.
England • The 1215 Barons' revolt against the rule of
King John, which led to the
Magna Carta. Immediately, John repudiated Magna Carta, leading to the
First Barons' War. • The
English Reformation:
Pope Clement VII's refusal to
annul King
Henry VIII's first marriage with
Catherine of Aragon impeded the king's efforts to produce a male heir. Henry repudiated the Pope's ecclesiastical authority within
England and required all officials to recognize him as
Supreme Head of the Church of England, allowing him to divorce Catherine and marry
Anne Boleyn. •
King Charles I's insistence on the
Divine Right of Kings, manifest in his
Personal Rule from 1629 to 1640, and leading directly to the
Wars of the Three Kingdoms. • The
Glorious Revolution of 1688–89: The flight of
King James II/VII from the country left no king in his place to rule England or Scotland or to summon a
Parliament. When
King William and
Queen Mary jointly replaced him there was therefore no legally recognised Parliament to legitimise their irregular succession to the throne. This led to the
Crown and Parliament Recognition Act 1689.
Estonia • The early 1930s political crisis in
Estonia as two constitutional reforms had been rejected by the electorate and only the
third referendum in 1933 succeeded in replacing the
parliamentary republic with the
presidential republic. The succeeding constitutional reform was proposed by the
Vaps Movement, who were however kept from power by the
self-coup of
Prime Minister Konstantin Päts, who was supported by the
Riigikogu.
France • The Brittany Affair of 1765: The king's court in
Brittany forbade collection of taxes to which the provincial
Estates did not consent. After King
Louis XV annulled the court's decree, most of its members resigned. The chief prosecutor,
Louis-René de Caradeuc de La Chalotais, was accused of writing letters denouncing the king's action and charged with treason. A court convened to try La Chalotais reached no conclusion due to questions of jurisdiction and the weakness of the evidence. The king then transferred the case to his own council, further inflaming fears of absolutism to the point that he was obligated to release La Chalotais and yield to the provincial authorities. • The
16 May 1877 crisis: President
Patrice de Mac-Mahon dismissed Prime Minister
Jules Simon and named
Albert de Broglie to replace him. The
National Assembly refused to recognize the new government and a crisis, which ended with the dissolution of the Assembly and
new elections, ensued.
Germany • Crisis of the
Weimar Republic (1930–1933): A series of conservative chancellors appointed by President
Paul von Hindenburg were unable to secure legislation from the
Reichstag, dominated first by the
Social Democratic Party and later the
Nazi and
Communist parties. These chancellors increasingly turned to legislation by emergency presidential decrees, thereby laying the constitutional foundation of
Adolf Hitler's dictatorship.
Malta • The
1981 election, when, due to a quirk in that country's
Single Transferable Vote system, the party winning more than half the votes won fewer than half the seats in parliament.
Order of Malta • In December 2016
Matthew Festing, Grand Master of the
Order of Malta, dismissed its Grand Chancellor
Albrecht von Boeselager for allowing the distribution of contraceptives in violation of the Catholic Church's policy. Boeslanger protested that the dismissal was irregular under the Order's constitution and appealed to
Pope Francis. Francis ordered an investigation of the dispute, then demanded and received Festing's resignation. The Order elected
Giacomo dalla Torre del Tempio di Sanguinetto as Festing's successor on a program of constitutional reform and promoting religious obedience.
Norway •
Impeachment of prime minister
Christian August Selmer's cabinet in 1883/1884 regarding the king's right to veto changes to the constitution, and establishment of an ad-hoc parliamentary practice until amended to the constitution in 2007. •
Dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden in 1905 Poland Roman Republic •
Caesar's Civil War: In 50 BC the
Roman Senate ordered
Julius Caesar, a popular military general and territorial governor, to disband his army and return to
Rome after he
invaded Gaul and
Britain. Rather than comply, Caesar
crossed the boundary of his territory with a legion of his army intending to confront the government. The Senate retreated before his advance, allowing him to establish a dictatorship that set the template for the
Roman Empire. This has often been cast as an episode in a
longer crisis. Russia • The
constitutional crisis of 1993:
President Boris Yeltsin ordered the dissolution of the
Supreme Soviet when it refused constitutional reforms that would allow him to implement his privatization program. After the Constitutional Court struck down Yeltsin's order, parliament impeached him and recognized a rival government of dissenting officials. Yeltsin used military force to disperse parliament, established a government by presidential decree, and pushed through a new constitution that increased the power of the presidency.
Scotland This covers the
Kingdom of Scotland, which became part of the
Kingdom of Great Britain after 1707. For constitutional crises since then, see
United Kingdom below. • The death of seven-year-old
Queen Margaret in 1290 prompted a succession dispute involving
thirteen claimants. The interim
Guardians of Scotland asked King
Edward I of England to arbitrate the dispute. Edward pursued his own interest in establishing lordship over Scotland by selecting claimant
John Balliol in return for an
oath of fealty. Scottish nobles rejected Edward's control, leading to the
Wars of Scottish Independence and a 10-year vacancy of the throne.
Spain ,
Carles Puigdemont, addresses the crowd following the unilateral declaration of independence on 27 October. •
2017–18 Spanish constitutional crisis: The government of
Catalonia under
Carles Puigdemont held an
independence referendum against instructions of the Spanish courts. The referendum passed by an overwhelming margin, albeit with limited voter participation, whereupon the Catalonian government
declared independence. The Spanish government dissolved the Catalonian government, arrested pro-independence politicians and imposed direct rule from Madrid for more than half a year.
Turkey •
2023 Turkish constitutional crisis Ukraine •
2020-2021 Ukrainian constitutional crisis: The
Constitutional Court of Ukraine ruled much of Ukraine's 2014 anti-
corruption reform unconstitutional, placing the country's foreign relations at risk.
United Kingdom While the
United Kingdom does not have a written constitution, it has
an unwritten one. • The regency crisis of 1788: A new
Parliament was convened while King
George III was unable, due to illness, to charge it with its responsibilities or to assent to any bills. Parliament nonetheless submitted an irregular bill that provided for
George, Prince of Wales to act as regent, and the
Lord Chancellor Lord Thurlow affixed the royal seal to it without the King's signature. This precedent was repeated in 1811 after the King again fell ill. • The
Bedchamber crisis between 1839 and 1841, after
the 2nd Viscount Melbourne, a leading
Whig politician, declared his intention to resign as
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom after a government bill passed by a very narrow margin of only five votes in the
House of Commons. The crisis occurred very early in the reign of
Queen Victoria and involved her first change of government. She was partial to Lord Melbourne, and resisted the requests of his rival,
Robert Peel, to replace some of her
ladies-in-waiting, who were primarily from Whig-aligned families, with Conservative substitutes as a condition for forming a government. Following a few false moves toward an alternative Conservative prime minister and government, Melbourne was reinstated until the
1841 election, after which Peel was appointed Prime Minister and Victoria conceded to the replacement of six of her ladies-in-waiting. • The
House of Lords' rejection of the 1909
People's Budget, a proposal by
Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George and
President of the Board of Trade Winston Churchill entailing
welfare reforms funded by taxes on
landowners. This caused a two-year impasse, which ended after the
Liberal Party won the
January 1910 general election and the House of Lords ratified the law. However, the impasse resumed when Prime Minister
H. H. Asquith introduced the
Parliament Act permanently removing the House of Lords' veto over
money bills and sharply limiting its veto over
public bills, which the House of Lords blocked after the
December 1910 general election ended in a
hung parliament. King
George V finally forced the House to ratify the law by threatening to end its Conservative majority by appointing hundreds of new
peers. • The 1936
Edward VIII abdication crisis, when King
Edward VIII proposed to marry divorcee
Wallis Simpson against the advice of his ministers. This was unacceptable to the leaders of the
United Kingdom and the
dominions because Simpson was twice divorced and the
Church of England, of which Edward served as
the head, forbade
remarriage of divorcees if their spouses were still alive. Rather than ending their relationship the King chose to abdicate and his brother assumed the throne as
King George VI. • The
2019 British prorogation controversy in October 2019, when the
Cabinet of Conservative Prime Minister
Boris Johnson advised Queen
Elizabeth II to
prorogue the
British Parliament for five weeks. The decision was taken during contentious parliamentary debate over the
United Kingdom's impending withdrawal from the
European Union. In the unanimous
R (Miller) v The Prime Minister and Cherry v Advocate General for Scotland decisions, the
Supreme Court of the United Kingdom unanimously found the prorogation to be unlawful as preventing the ability of Parliament to carry out its constitutional functions without reasonable justification. ==North America==