Security of tenure

Security of tenure is a term used in political science to describe a constitutional or legal guarantee that a political office-holder cannot be removed from office except in exceptional and specified circumstances.

Without security of tenure, an office-holder may find his or her ability to carry out their powers, functions and duties restricted by the fear that whoever disapprove of any of their decisions may be able to easily remove them from office in revenge. Security of tenure offers protection, by ensuring that an office-holder cannot be victimised for exercising their powers, functions and duties. It enables the democratic or constitutional methodology through which an office-holder comes to office not to be overturned except in the strictest and most extreme cases.

The standard form of security of tenure offered to officeholders is usually that they can only be removed from office by either of two methods:

Most presidents of states worldwide and most monarchs have security of tenure. Governors-General do not and can be dismissed by their head of state when formally advised to do so either by the prime minister or by the cabinet.

In the United States, while two presidents were impeached in the over two centuries existence of the presidency, (Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton), no president has been removed from office to date.

Lack of security of tenure is regarded by some commentators as having contributed to the controversial decision of Australian governor-general Sir John Kerr to dismiss the prime minister, Gough Whitlam, in 1975. In the immediate aftermath of the dismissal critics, the Labor Party and much of the media criticised Kerr for not giving any advance indication that he intended to dismiss the prime minister. In systems where a head of state or representative of the head of state has security of tenure, both are in a position to exercise the third of Walter Bagehot's three maxims governing the rights of a head of state: the 'right to warn' that prime minister or government's actions or inactions are inadvisable and in breach either of constitutional law or constitutional conventions.

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