The Making and Remaking of Commonwealth Constitutions

Abstract

ON the passing of its Empire, Britain left some 50 specific legacies: to every Commonwealth State, a written constitution, or the means of obtaining one. The earlier constitutions, of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, not fully sovereign States at the time, were enacted by the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The post-war constitutions were formed in a different way. Parliament passed an Independence Act; but the constitutions either were drawn up in Whitehall, and made law by Order in Council, or were indigenous. We have something of a phenomenon: Whitehall lawyers must have drafted at least 33 complete and final independence constitutions during the period, to say nothing of a deluge of intermediate instruments.' And this from almost the only country in the world to be itself without a written constitution. Many of the constitutions made in London have been unmade, and made again, in far-away capitals; and a similar fate has overtaken some of the indigenous constitutions. But many have lasted. This article will attempt an assessment of the successes and failures of Commonwealth constitution-making during the past 40 years or more.