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 of Westminster 1931 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (22 & 23 Geo. V c. 4, December 11, 1931) which established a status of legislative equality between
the self-governing dominions of the British Empire and
the United Kingdom, with a few residual exceptions. The Statute became domestic law within each of the other Commonwealth Realms after the patriation of the particular Realm's constitution, to the extent that
it was not rendered obsolete by that process.
The Statute is of historical importance because it marked the effective legislative independence of these countries, either
immediately or upon ratification. The residual constitutional powers retained by the Westminster parliament have now largely been
superseded by subsequent legislation. Its current relevance is that it sets the basis for the continuing relationship between the
Commonwealth Realms and the Crown.
Parties
The Statute applied to the dominions which existed in 1931: the Commonwealth of Australia, 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Validity Act 1865 was repealed in its applications to the dominions.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 many constitutional changes continued to require the intervention of the
British Parliament, although only at the request and with the consent of the Dominions as described above. These residual powers
were finally removed by the Canada Act 1982, the Australia Act 1986, and the New Zealand Constitution Act
1986.
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.
It was also enacted that:
- 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.
Under the provisions of section 9 of the statute, the British
Parliament still had the power to pass legislation regarding the Australian states, although "in accordance with the [existing] constitutional
practice". In practice, these powers were not exercised. For example, in a referendum held in Western Australia in April 1933, 68% of voters voted for the state to
leave the Commonwealth of Australia with the aim of becoming a separate Dominion within the British Empire. The state government
sent a delegation to Westminster to cause the result to be enacted, but the British Parliament refused to intervene on the
grounds that it was a matter for the Commonwealth of Australia. As a result no action was taken. These residual powers were
removed by the Australia Act 1986.
Implications for succession to the throne
The preamble to the Statute of Westminster sets out conventions which affect 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:
This means, for example, that any change to the Act of Settlement's provisions
barring Roman Catholics from the throne or giving male heirs precedence over
females would require the unanimous consent of the parliaments of all the other Commonwealth
realms if the unity of the Crown is to be retained. The preamble does not itself contain enforceable provisions, so the
preamble merely expresses a constitutional convention, albeit one fundamental to the basis of the relationship between the
Commonwealth Realms. (Of course, as sovereign nations, each is free to withdraw from
the arrangement, using their respective process for constitutional amendment, and no longer be united through common allegiance
to the Crown.)
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, being a divorcée, was considered by British
politicians an unacceptable person to become Queen.
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 other Realms the effects of Edward's abdication were more direct. In Canada, it was this
abdication that first demonstrated that the Canadian parliament now had control
over the line of succession within its jurisdiction; with Canada passing the Succession to the Throne Act (1 Geo. VI,
c.16) to effect changes to the rules of succession in Canada to assure consistency with the changes in the rules then in place in
Great Britain.[1] In Ireland, the laws allowing for the abdication of Edward as King of Ireland were not passed until the
day following each of the other Realms, which hypothetically meant that Ireland had a different monarch for twenty-four hours.
Further, Prime Minister Éamon 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, when speaking or writing
in the Irish language, 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 sixteen parliaments would all have to vote to approve any future changes, such as the abolition of male-preference primogeniture.
See also
External links
Footnotes
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