PRIVY COUNCIL

Southland Times, Issue 25306, 8 June 1935, Page 5

PRIVY COUNCIL

IMPORTANT JUDGMENT LEGISLATIVE RIGHTS OF DOMINIONS NO RESTRICTION. (United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright.) London, June 6. The effect of the Statute of Westminster was to remove a fetter upon the Irish Free State Legislature by reason of the Colonial Laws Validity Act. That Legislature can now pass Acts repugnant to the Imperial Act. The foregoing is the kernel of an important Privy Council judgment on an appeal in relation to Free State fishery rights held by Robert Moore under grants of 1622. The Free State Supreme Court held that the grants were null and void. The Judicial Committee granted leave to appeal and shortly afterwards the Irish Parliament passed the Constitution (Amendment number 22) Act of 1933, which Moore petitioned to have declared no bar to the maintenance of the original appeal. Lord Sankey declared that before the passing of the Statute of Westminster, it was not competent for the Free State Parliament to pass an Act abrogating the 1921 treaty, because the Colonial Laws Validity Act forbade Dominion legislation repugnant to an Imperial Act. Under the Statute of Westminster the Free State could pass, and had passed, a repugnant Act. The Statute gave them the power, of which they had availed themselves, to abrogate the treaty. , , Dealing with the contention that the amendment was invalid because it affected the prerogatives of the King in a matter outside the Dominion and outside the competence of the Free State Parliament, Lord Sankey said: It is enough here to say that whatever might be the position of the King’s prerogative if it were left as a matter of Common Law, it is here, in this particular respect, and in this particular legislation, so that the prerogative is, pro tern, merged in the Statute and the Statute gives powers of amendment and of altering the statutory prerogative. The petition was therefore dismissed. No Control by Britain. The Times says the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council for oyer a hundred years has been the ultimate Court of Appeal for the Empire, exercising jurisdiction over a quarter of the world and over 400,000,000 of the King’s subjects. Its authority and prestige can only be enhanced by therobust commonsense grasp of realities shown in these two judgments which make it clear that Dominion Governments and Parliaments have the legal right to enact what legislation they please without any control from the Government and Parliament of Great Britain, and that in the legal view, as in the political, the British Commonwealth of Nations is a free association between partners enjoying equal rights. It is conceivable that some of the partners may make use of their freedom to do things injurious to themselves and the rest of the Commonwealth, but if they should desire to act foolishly or maliciously there is nothing .in the legal rights discarded by the Statute of Westminster which would have enabled the British Government and Parliament to restrain them. So far as the King in Council is concerned, it is safe to say after these judgments that the right regarded by most Dominions as a valuable safeguard is now in less danger of being curtailed by Dominion legislation than it was before these judgments recognized the legal competence of the Dominions to restrict or to abolish it, as they think fit.