Pocket veto

Similar to India [see India below], section 58 of the Constitution of Barbados, as amended by the Constitution Amendment Act 2021 (which transitioned the country from a Commonwealth realm to a parliamentary republic with its own head of state) states that the President shall declare his assent to a bill passed by Parliament or withhold his assent.

However, much like in India, the Barbadian Constitution does not give a specific time frame for presidential action on a bill sent by the Parliament.

[3][4] Zail Singh, the President of India from 1982 until 1987, exercised a pocket veto to prevent the Indian Post Office (Amendment) Bill from becoming law.

A return veto happens when the president sends a bill, along with their objections, back to the house of Congress from which it originated.

[6][failed verification] Of presidents throughout United States history, Franklin D. Roosevelt had an outstanding number of pocket vetoes, more than anyone before or after him.

In 1929, the United States Supreme Court ruled in the Pocket Veto Case that a bill had to be returned to the chamber while it is in session and capable of work.

Presidents have been reluctant to pursue disputed pocket vetoes to the Supreme Court for fear of an adverse ruling that would serve as a precedent in future cases.

1585, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008,[10] even though the House of Representatives had designated agents to receive presidential messages before adjourning.

If the president had chosen to veto the bill, he would have been required to return it to the chamber in which it originated, in this case the House of Representatives.

"[13] Louis Fisher, a constitutional scholar at the Library of Congress indicated: "The administration would be on weak grounds in court because they would be insisting on what the Framers decidedly rejected: an absolute veto.

[21] Governor Edgar Whitcomb requested that the General Assembly pass an act repealing all laws that were enacted because of the Supreme Court decision, some of which were nearly a century old.

For example, when the California Supreme Court was answering the certified question of intervenor standing in the case of Perry v. Brown (known as the Proposition 8 case), one of the justices expressed concern that denying appellate standing to initiative proponents would mean that the governor and state attorney general would "essentially get a 'pocket veto'".