Beginning as a Hindu-Buddhist city-state in 414 C.E., Brunei later embraced Islam. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, its influence extended throughout Borneo and the Philippines. From the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Brunei steadily lost all its territories due to Spanish, British, Portuguese, and Dutch interventions. Then in 1888, Brunei was made a British protectorate.
From 1906 to 1959, a British Resident held administrative power, while the Brunei Sultan’s jurisdiction was restricted to Malay traditions and religion. In 1959, Brunei’s first written constitution was presented, bestowing full executive authority on the Sultan as the Head of State. The Sultan is assisted and advised by five councils; the Religious Council, the Privy Council, the Council of Ministers (the Cabinet), the Legislative Council, and the Council of Succession. In 1984, Brunei gained full political independence from the United Kingdom and has since maintained a cabinet style of government. The Sultan, also the prime minister as well as finance and defense minister, holds real political power, as the system of government revolves around him. Appointments of cabinet ministers are made at the Sultan’s discretion, as the 1959 constitution states that the sultan exercises power of appointment to the councils. Therein, Brunei is an independent sovereign sultanate that is governed on the basis of a written constitution.
