Sovereigns and Surrogates: Constitutional Heads of State in the Commonwealth

372 Pages·1991·34.455 MB·English

by  David Butler, D. A. Low (eds.)

SOVEREIGNS AND SURROGATES
Sovereigns and
Surrogates
Constitutional Heads of State in the
Commonwealth
Edited by
David Butler
Fellow
Nuffield College. Ox/ord
and
D.A.Low
Smuts Professor of the History of the British Commonwealth
University ofCambridge
Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN 978-1-349-11567-9 ISBN 978-1-349-11565-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-11565-5
© David Butler and D. A. Low 1991
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 1991
All rights reserved. For infonnation, write:
Scholarly and Reference Division,
St Martin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue,
New York, N.Y. lOOlO
First published in the United States of America in 1991
ISBN 978-0-312-0571 0-7
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Sovereigns and surrogates : constitutional heads of state in the
Commonwealth I edited by David Butler and D.A. Low.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references (p.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-312-0571 0-7
1. Heads of state-Commonwealth of Nations. I. Butler, David,
1924- . II. Low, D.A. (Donald Anthony), 1927-
JF251.S87 1990
351.003'12-dc20 90-9125
CIP
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
I Introduction 1
David Butler
11 United Kingdom 10
Vernon Bogdanor
m
Canada 41
James Mallory
N Australia 61
Brian Galligan
V New Zealand 108
Anthony Wood
VI India 144
Jarnes Manor
VII West Indies 171
Sir Ellis Clarke
vm Malaysia 203
Hugh Hickling
IX South-West Pacific 233
Yash Ghai and Jill Cottrell
X European Constitutional Monarchs 274
Vernon Bogdanor
XI Episodes 298
Anthony Low
Appendices
I Constitutional Heads of State in the 330
Commonwealth, 1945-1989
11 Incidents Classified 351
Bibliography 355
Index 358
CONTRIBUTORS
VERNON BOGDANOR is a Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford
DAVID BUTLER is a Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford
SIR EIDS CURKE served as Govemor-General (l97~76) and
President (l97fr86) of Trinidad and Tobago
JIU COTTREU is Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of
Warwick
BR/AN GAWGAN is Deputy Director of the Centre for Research on
Federal Financial Relations in the Australian National University
YASHI GHAI is Sir Y.K. Pao Professor of Public Law at the
University of Hong Kong
HUGH HICKLING is a Solicitor formerly of the Colonial Legal Service
ANTHONY WW is President of Clare Hall, and Smuts Professor of the
History of the British Commonwealth in the University of Cambridge
JAMES MAILORY 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
ANTHONY WOOD is Associate Professor of Political Studies at the
University of Otago
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Many people have helped us and our contributors in the preparation of this
book. We are particularly indebted to the forty or more present and past
incumbents of high office who granted interviews or answered a detailed
questionnaire from uso We have to thank, too, all those who read chapters
of the book and made most helpful suggestions. But, since our subject is in
part such a delicate one, the only helpers we can thank by narne are those
who really prepared the manuscript - Iill Lake, Elaine Hennan and Audrey
Skeats - and Vemon Bogdanor who read it all so meticulously.
April 1990 David Butler
Anthony Low
Chapter I
INTRODUCTION
David Butler
By the time that the British Parliament granted self-govemment on
the Westminster model to any of Britain's overseas territories, the
rules of the game of constitutional monarchy had become firmly
established. The British North America Act, which brought into
existence the federal Dominion of Canada, with a Govemor-General
to perform the Queen's functions, was passed in 1867 two years after
Walter Bagehot had irreverently revealed the limits of monarchical
power in The United Kingdom. We now know that Queen Victoria
was somewhat more influential than was suggested in Bagehot's
classic description of the limits of her role -'the right to be consulted,
the right to encourage and the right to wam'. But if the British
concept of a figurehead, a neutral symbol of national unity, a
detached umpire in times of political crisis, was recognised in the
1860s, it was to become much more entrenched over the next four
generations. In the post-1945 period, it was there, ready to be
copied, when overseas territories, in the course of achieving fuH
autonomy, devised their new constitutions.
This book is primarily about those independent countries in
the Commonwealth which have in large measure preserved the
Westminster form of govemment, with executive power exercised by
a Prime Minister and Cabinet answerable to the legislature, but with
a Governor-General or President broadly carrying out the ceremonial
and constitutional functions expected of the British Sovereign. We
are not concerned with those countries, mostly in Mrica, which have
tumed to executive presidencies and one-party States. We are
primarily interested in describing the way in which Constitutional
Heads in Westminster systems actually operate, and in discussing
the constitutional dilemmas they have had to facel. Monarchs and
Governor-Generals2 have to act as umpires in agame where
unexpected situations may arise which are not fully covered by any
generaHy accepted book of rules.
Any assessment of constitutional umpiring requires us first
to see who become umpires and what training and advice is available
to them. Between 1867 and 1945 thirty-six gentlemen held the office
of Govemor-General in the four Dominions which then existed. All
2 Introduction
but four of them were British - and almost all of these were
hereditary grandees. Sir Isaac Isaacs (Australia 1931-6) was the
only native of the country he headed. This period (which has been
weIl covered by Evatt, Forsey, Keith, and Todd)3 falls largely outside
the scope of this work - although no-one can discuss the power of
dissolution without reference to the King-Byng affair of 1926, or the
right to dismiss a government without reference to the Game-Lang
confrontation of 1932.
Since 1945 the world has changed. The Dominions Office
became the Commonwealth Relations Office in 1947 and was
amalgamated into the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1966.
The Commonwealth grew from four to fifty self-governing countries,
thirty of them maintaining the Westminster model. Six now have
Indigenous Monarchies. Twenty-eight are republies, including all
those which have explicitly or implicitly abandoned the British
parliamentary pattern. But sixteen still have Governor-Generals
and three have non-executive Presidents; it is these who provide the
central focus of our attention.
The activities of Governor-Generals and Presidents have not
been the sl.ibject of extensive academic study. Biographies have been
written about all the British Monarchs and a few Governor-Generals;
in addition a few Governor-Generals - most notably Sir Paul
Hasluck, Sir Zelman Cowen and Sir Denis BlundeB4 -have provided
insightful essays on their experience. Quite a lot has been written by
lawyers and political scientists about the obvious dilemmas that can
arise over the granting of dissolutions and the appointment of Prime
Ministers; those involved in the most celebrated of crises -Australia,
1975 -have each told their side of the story.5 But Heads of State are,
with good reason, averse to vulgar chit-chat, and the minutiae of day
to-day life in Government Houses, as weB as the routines of official
business or ceremonial infrastructure, are largely unrecorded. Most
of the Governor-Generals contacted in the course of this study
commented on how little guidance was available to them on the
problems of their job.6
This book is not concerned with gossip or with administrative
detail. Its goal is to throw wider light on the personnel and the
problems involved in a constitutional office which usuaBy attracts
little attention but which can at times be vital to the smooth running
ofa country.
Some explanation is needed on why we have included some
countries and excluded others. First, India, the largest of
Commonwealth countries, has maintained parliamentary
Introduction 3
govemment through many adversities: the position and problems of
the Indian President are so elose to those facing a Govemor-General
that it seemed right to deal with his situation (as weIl as those of
Presidents and Indigenous Monarchs at the head of Westminster
type systems, such as Trinidad and Malaysia). Second, Canada and
Australia, operating as federal systems with semi-autonomous
provinces and states, have preserved Lieutenant-Govemors and
Govemors; these share many of the challenges confronting
Govemor-Generals and thus fall within our survey (although we
have not dealt with Colonial Govemors who, as independence
approached, often faced similar problems). Third, in continental
Europe there are six monarchs in a situation broadly comparable to
that of Queen Elizabeth 11, and we have therefore included a chapter
exploring how they have solved govemmental crises.
In Appendix I, we list the ninety-four persons who, between
1945 and early 1990, were appointed to the office of Govemor
General. Only three were women. Fifty-three were natives of the
country they headed. Indeed since 1980 no-one who was not a totally
established member of the local society has taken up the office. Sir
Isaac Isaacs (1931-6) and Sir William McKell (1947-53) were the only
Australian-born Govemor-Generals before 1965. Canada only
switched to Canadians in 1952 and New Zealand only in 1967 -
although Lord Freyberg (1946-52) was an earlier exception. Even
South Africa had British born Governor-Generals until 1946.7 But,
except for brief interludes in the transition period, aU the new
Commonwealth countries granted independence in the 1960s and
1970s tumed to their own native citizens. At the level of Governor
only one Briton has been appointed to an Australian state since 1968
(Sir R. Trowbridge in Westem Australia in 1980). Canada has had
no British Lieutenant-Governors since the 1860s.
The term of office for Govemor-Generals is seldom formally
stated but the norm is almost always five years and any renewal or
limited continuation is a matter of special arrangement. Sir Florizel
Glasspole, still at Govemment Rouse in Jamaica after seventeen
years and two changes of govemment, is the record-holder, but Sir
EIlis Clarke with fourteen years as Govemor-General and then
President in Trinidad runs hirn elose. They cannot, of course, match
the duration of Indigenous Monarchs, most notably of Queen
Elizabeth 11 with her continuous experience ofthe office since 1952.
In almost all cases the selection of the Governor-General is
entirely in the hands of the govemment of the day in the country
concemed. In Australia state Premiers nominate the Govemors hut