Constitutional Heads and Political Crises: Commonwealth Episodes, 1945–85

253 Pages·1988·13.611 MB·English

by  D. A. Low (eds.)

CONSTITUTIONAL HEADS AND POLITICAL
CRISES
CAMBRIDGE COMMONWEALTH SERIES
Published by Macmillan in association with the Managers of the Cambridge University
Smuts Memorial Fund for the Advancement of Commonwealth Studies
General Editors: E. T. Stokes (1972-81); D. A. Low (1983- ), both Smuts Professors
of the History of the British Commonwealth, University of Cambridge
Roger Anstey
THE ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE AND BRITISH ABOLITION, 1760-1810
John Darwin
BRITAIN, EGYPT AND THE MIDDLE EAST: Imperial Policy in the Aftermath of
War, 1918-22
T. R. H. Davenport
SOUTH AFRICA: A MODERN HISTORY
B. H. Farmer (editor)
GREEN REVOLUTION? Technology and Change in Rice-Growing Areas of Tamil
Nadu and Sri Lanka
Partha Sarathi Gupta
IMPERIALISM AND THE BRITISH LABOUR MOVEMENT, 1914-64
R.F.Holland
BRITAIN AND THE COMMONWEALTH ALLIANCE, 1918-39
Ronald Hyam and Ged Martin
REAPPRAISALS IN BRITISH IMPERIAL HISTORY
W. David Mcintyre
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SINGAPORE NAVAL BASE
D. A. Low (editor)
CONSTITUTIONAL HEADS AND POLITICAL CRISES: Commonwealth Episodes,
1945-85
A. N. Porter and A. J. Stockwell
BRITISH IMPERIAL POLICY AND DECOLONIZATION, 1938-64
Volume 1: 1938-51
Volume2: 1951-64
Sumit Sarkar
MODERN INDIA, 1885-1947
T.E.Smith
COMMONWEALTH MIGRATION: Flows and Policies
B. R. Tomlinson
THE INDIAN NATIONAC ONGRESS AND THE RAJ, 1929-42
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE RAJ, 1914-47
John Manning Ward
COLONIAL SELF-GOVERNMENT: The British Experience, 1759-1865
Constitutional Heads
and Political Crises
Commonwealth Episodes, 1945-85
Edited by
D.A.Low
President of Clare Hall
and Smuts Professor of the History of the British Commonwealth
University of Cambridge
M
MACMILLAN
PRESS
© D. A. Low 1988
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1988
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First published 1988
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Constitutional heads and political crises:
Commonwealth episodes, 1945-85.-
(Cambridge commonwealth series).
1. Commonwealth countries. Political events,
1945-1985
I. Low, D. A. (Donald Anthony), 1927-
II. Series
909'.09171241
ISBN 978-1-349-10199-3 ISBN 978-1-349-10197-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-10197-9
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Contents
Preface Vll
Notes on the Contributors viii
2 Introduction: Buckingham Palace and the Westminster
Model 2
D. A. Low
2 Setting a Precedent by Breaking a Precedent: Lord
Soulbury in Ceylon, 1952 26
James Manor
3 Governors and Politicians: the Australian States
principally in the 1940s and I950s 37
J. B. Paul
4 The Politics of a Constitutional Crisis: Pakistan, April
1953-May I955 57
Ayesha Jalal
5 Politics, Law and Constitutionalism: The I962 Western
Region Crisis in Nigeria 67
James O'Connell
6 The Dismissal of a Prime Minister: Australia, II
November I975 90
D. A. Low
7 The Governor-General's Part in a Constitutional Crisis:
Fiji I977 107
David J. Murray
8 Seeking Greater Power and Constitutional Change:
India's President and the Parliamentary Crisis of 1979 I26
James Manor
9 A Revolutionary Governor-General? The Grenada Crisis
ofi983 I42
Peter Fraser
10 The Conventions of Ministerial Resignations: the
Queensland Coalition Crisis of 1983 163
D. J. Markwell
v
vi Contents
11 Princes and Politicians: The Constitutional Crisis in
Malaysia, 1983-84 182
A. J. Stockwell
12 The Double Role of the Indian Governors: Kashmir and
Andhra Pradesh 1983-84 198
Douglas V. Verney
13 The Crises that Didn't Happen: Canada 1945-85 218
J. R. Mallory
Appendix: A List of Episodes 235
Index 238
Preface
Since the publication of Eugene Forsey's The Royal Power ofD issolution
of Parliament in the Commonwealth (Toronto 1943) there appears to
have been no further compendium on the operations of constitutional
headship in the countries of the Commonwealth. The present book is
still not that. It nevertheless constitutes an overdue attempt to revive a
comparative interest in an important-sometimes indeed vital-aspect
of constitutional government in an important selection of the world's
democracies. It seeks to do so by way of a series of studies principally of
occasions since the Second World War when constitutional heads in a
number of these countries became significantly involved in some
constitutional and/or political crisis. Even apart from the large number
of occasions when this has occurred in India, the Appendix illustrates
that in the rest of the Commonwealth such occasions have all told been
much more numerous than seems ordinarily to be appreciated. A
subsequent volume which is under consideration will perhaps review the
more regular operations of the office.
The present volume stems from a small conference at Churchill
College, Cambridge, in June 1986 which was honoured by the atten
dance of Sir William Heseltine, the Private Secretary to Her Majesty the
Queen, and Sir Zelman Cowen, Provost of Oriel College, Oxford, and
formerly Governor-General of Australia. Dr David Butler, Dr Geoffrey
Marshall, Mr Vernon Bogdanor, Professor David Fieldhouse and Dr
David Cannadine were amongst those who also attended, and whose
contributions were particularly welcomed. Financial support for the
conference was generously provided by the Managers of the Smuts
Memorial Fund in Cambridge, and by the Trustees of the Nuffield
Foundation. The latter was especially appreciated since it enabled two of
the North American contributors to this book, without whom it would
have been substantially the poorer, to attend the conference. Thanks are
due too to Churchill College, Cambridge, for the domestic and other
facilities it provided; and not least to the ready co-operation which the
authors of the papers have extended throughout to the editor.
D. A. LOW
vii
Notes on the Contributors
Peter Fraser is Lecturer in Historical and Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths'
College, University of London.
Ayesha Jalal is Professor of Political Science at the University of
Wisconsin.
D. A. Low is President of Clare Hall and Smuts Professor of the History
of the British Commonwealth at the University of Cambridge.
J. R. Mallory is Emeritus Professor of Political Science at McGill
University.
James Manor is a Fellow of the Institute of Development Studies and
Professorial Fellow of the University of Sussex.
D. J. Markwell is Fellow and Tutor in Politics at Merton College,
Oxford.
David J. Murray is Professor of Politics and Pro-Vice-Chancellor
(Academic: Courses and Research) at the Open University.
James O'Connell is Professor of Peace Studies at the University of
Bradford.
J. B. Paul is Senior Lecturer in Political Science at the University of New
South Wales.
A. J. Stockwell is Senior Lecturer in History, Royal Holloway and
Bedford New College in the University of London.
Douglas V. Verney is Professor of Political Science at York University,
Toronto.
Vlll
1 Introduction:
Buckingham Palace and
the Westminster Model
D.A.Low
Constitutional monarchy was a long time in the making; two and a half
centuries or so. Its principal evolution has been in Britain. But in various
guises it has operated in a number of mainland European countries and
in such eastern countries as Japan and Thailand. In an ostensibly
modified form it underpins a good many 'presidential' systems of
government, where the President is head of state but in no way head of
government; and in a residual form it is even to be found in communist
countries. In the style that is most commensurate with that which
obtains in Britain, constitutional monarchy is chiefly to be encountered
in the Commonwealth, not merely where governors-general are formally
and explicitly representatives of the British sovereign within the local
system of government, but in a number of cases where a local monarch
or an elected monarch or a senior chief or an elected governor-general or
an elected non-executive president or an appointed governor or an
appointed lieutenant-governor is to be found. When to the list of
independent states with heads of state of this kind one adds the
Australian, Indian and Malaysian States and the Canadian Provinces,
one finds that there are no less than 85 such polities in the Common
wealth all told, 1 each of which has a non-executive constitutional head
that to a greater or lesser extent derives its constitutional precedents
from the British model. Little systematic consideration has been given to
this phenomenon. This collection is chiefly designed to draw attention to
it by way of a number of studies of recent instances in which the actions
of such constitutional heads have entailed important political con
sequences.
It is of the nature of constitutional monarchy that is has become
combined with a number of other constitutional features. Of these the
most important is parliamentary supremacy - the system in which not
merely does an elected assembly have all the major legislative powers,
but is the source from which the executive derives its composition and
1