Statute of Westminster 1931
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- This article is about the Statute of Westminster relating to the British Empire and its dominions. There were also Statutes of Westminster of 1275, 1285 and 1290 (known as 'First', 'Second' and 'Third'), relating to the government of the Kingdom of England.
The Statute is of historical importance because it marked the independence of these countries, either immediately or upon ratification. Its residual constitutional powers have been superseded by subsequent legislation. Its current relevance is that it sets the basis for the continuing relationship between the Commonwealth Realms and the structure of the Crown.
Parties
The Statute applied to the dominions which existed in 1931: the Commonwealth of Australia, the Dominion of Canada, the Irish Free State, the Dominion of Newfoundland, the Dominion of New Zealand, and the Union of South Africa. It excluded revisions of the Acts of Parliament upon which the constitutions of Canada and Australia were founded (New Zealand's constitution is unwritten).
Further, it did not apply to Australia, New Zealand or Newfoundland unless and until ratified by their respective Parliaments. Australia ratified the Statute in 1942 to clarify government war powers; the adoption was backdated to the start of World War II on September 3 1939. New Zealand adopted the Statute on November 25 1947 by its own Statute of Westminster Adoption Act. Newfoundland never adopted the Statute; by request of its government, the United Kingdom resumed direct rule in 1934 and maintained it until Newfoundland became a province of Canada in 1949.
Equality provisions
The Statute gave effect to certain political resolutions passed by the Imperial Conferences of 1926 and 1930, in particular the Balfour Declaration of 1926. One of the effects was removing the last imperial bond of power of British Parliament over dominions. The Colonial Laws Validity Act 1865 was repealed in its applications to the dominions. After the Statute was passed, the British government could no longer make ordinary law for the dominions, other than at the request and with the consent of that dominion.
It did not, however, immediately provide for any changes to the legislation establishing the constitutions of Australia, Canada and New Zealand. This meant, for example, that changes to many parts of the Canadian constitution continued to require the intervention of the British Parliament, although henceforth only at the request and with the consent of Canada as described above.
The key passage of the Statute provides that:
- No Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom passed after the commencement of this Act shall extend or be deemed to extend, to a Dominion as part of the law of that Dominion, unless it is expressly declared in that Act that that Dominion has requested, and consented to, the enactment thereof.
- No law and no provision of any law made after the commencement of this Act by the Parliament of a Dominion shall be void or inoperative on the ground that it is repugnant to the law of England, or to the provisions of any existing or future Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom, or to any order, rule, or regulation made under any such Act, and the powers of the Parliament of a Dominion shall include the power to repeal or amend any such Act, order, rule or regulation in so far as the same is part of the law of the Dominion.
Implications for succession to the throne
The preamble to the Statute of Westminster sets out conventions which impact on attempts to change the rules of succession to the Crown. The second paragraph of the preamble to the Statute reads:
- And whereas it is meet and proper to set out by way of preamble to this Act that, inasmuch as the Crown is the symbol of the free association of the members of the British Commonwealth of Nations, and as they are united by a common allegiance to the Crown, it would be in accord with the established constitutional position of all the members of the Commonwealth in relation to one another that any alteration in the law touching the Succession to the Throne or the Royal Style and Titles shall hereafter require the assent as well of the Parliaments of all the Dominions as of the Parliament of the United Kingdom:
Before King Edward VIII abdicated in 1936 British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin consulted the Commonwealth Prime Ministers, at the King's request. The King had wanted to marry Wallis Simpson, who as a divorcee, was considered unacceptable to become Queen by British politicians of the time. Baldwin was able to get the four Dominion Prime Ministers to agree with this consensus, and thus register their official disapproval over the King's planned marriage. The King later requested the Commonwealth Prime Ministers be consulted on a compromise plan, in which he would wed Simpson under a morganatic marriage and thus not have her become Queen. Under Baldwin's pressure, this plan was also rejected by the Dominions. All of these negotiations occurred at a strictly diplomatic level and never went to the Commonwealth parliaments. However, the enabling legislation that allowed for the actual abdication did require the consent of the Commonwealth parliaments.
When Edward abdicated the South African Parliament formally voted to "approve" the King's decision. The move was largely done for symbolic purposes, in an attempt by Prime Minister J.B.M. Hertzog to assert South Africa's "independence" from Britain. South Africa would eventually become a republic in 1961.
In Ireland, the effects of Edward's abdication were more direct, and prime minister Eamon de Valera used the departure of the monarch as an opportunity to remove all monarchical language from the Constitution of the Irish Free State. A new "native" constitution, Bunreacht na hÉireann was approved by Irish voters in 1937, with the Irish Free State becoming simply "Ireland", or Éire. Ireland became a republic in 1949 (taking the "official description" Republic of Ireland).
The convention about altering the "Royal Style and Titles" was altered by the Commonwealth Prime Ministers in 1953, when they agreed to pass individual Royal Styles and Titles Acts to enact different royal styles in each Realm.
Since 1931 over a dozen new "Commonwealth Realms" have been created, all of which now hold the same powers as the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand over matters of change to the monarchy (Ireland and South Africa are now republics, and Newfoundland is part of Canada). This has raised some logistical concerns, as it would mean 16 parliaments would all have to vote to approve any future changes, such as the abolition of male-preference primogeniture.
See also
External links
- [1 - Canada and the Statute of Westminster]
- [2 - Canada and the Statute of Westminster]
- [Statute of Westminster, 1931 (text)]
- [Australia and the Statute of Westminster]
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