Zealand: The Executive (the Executive Council, as the Cabinet has no formal legal status), the legislature (the House of Representatives and Sovereign in Parliament) and the judiciary (Court system). Sovereign As per the Constitution Act 1986, New Zealand is a constitutional monarchy, wherein the role of the reigning sovereign is both legal and practical. The underlying principle is democracy, with political power exercised through a democratically elected parliament – this is often stated as "The [monarch] reigns but the government rules so long as it has the support of the House of Representatives." Part 1 of the Constitution Act describes "The Sovereign", the reigning monarch, as New Zealand's head of state. Section 2(1) of the Act declares "The Sovereign in Right of New Zealand" as head of state, and section 5(1) describes the sovereign's successor as being "determined in accordance with the enactment of the Parliament of England intituled The Act of Settlement". This means that the head of state of the United Kingdom under the Act of Settlement 1701 is also the head of state of New Zealand. Under the Imperial Laws Application Act 1988, however, the Act of Settlement is deemed a New Zealand Act, which may be amended only by the New Zealand Parliament. "The Crown in right of New Zealand" has been legally divided from the British monarchy following New Zealand's adoption of the 1931 Statute of Westminster in 1947. "The Crown" is regarded as the embodiment of the state, with the monarch at the centre of a construct in which the power of the whole is shared by multiple institutions of government acting under the sovereign's authority. The monarch is a component of Parliament, and the Royal Assent is required to allow for bills to become law. In practice the monarch takes little direct part in the day-to-day functions of government; the decisions to exercise sovereign powers are delegated from the monarch, either by statute or by convention, to ministers of the Crown, or other public bodies, exclusive of the monarch personally. Moreover, as the monarch is not normally resident in the country, the sovereign's representative in and over the Realm of New Zealand is the governor-general. The sovereign appoints the governor-general on the advice of the prime minister, who usually consults with the leader of the Opposition about the nomination. The office is largely ceremonial, although the governor-general holds a number of "reserve powers",