Responsible government in the Dominions: Responsible government in the Dominions

Responsible government in the Dominions (Vol. 3)

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Multivolume work

Identifikator:: 1896933912

Document type:: Multivolume work

Author:: Keith, Arthur Berriedale http://d-nb.info/gnd/119086794

Title:: Responsible government in the Dominions

Place of publication:: Oxford

Publisher:: Clarendon Press

Year of publication:: 1912-

Collection:: Economics Books

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Volume

Identifikator:: 1896935311

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-237672

Document type:: Volume

Author:: Keith, Arthur Berriedale http://d-nb.info/gnd/119086794

Title:: Responsible government in the Dominions

Volume count:: Vol. 3

Place of publication:: Oxford

Publisher:: Clarendon Pr.

Year of publication:: 1912

Scope:: XII Seiten, Seiten 1102-1670

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Multivolume work

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Part VI. The judiciary

Collection:: Economics Books

1390 THE JUDICIARY [PART VI to prescribe a position for the minister in which, on submit- ting petitions to the Governor, he is to express an opinion on each case, to be viewed as embodying no more than a recommendation ’, after which he is to have no further concern in the matter. I cannot subscribe to this principle of ministerial conduct, if this be what was intended by Mr. Robertson. There can be no question, I believe, that from the beginning of the present reign the Home Secretary in England decides absolutely in all matters of this kind in the name of the Crown, and that the Crown does not in practice interfere. At no former time when the Crown took an active part in such decisions, could the Crown, in the nature of things, be subject to a superior or an instructing authority. The wide difference between the position of the minister and his relations to the Crown and to Parliament in the Colony and in England is at once apparent on reading the dispatches from the Secretary of State. The Governor is invested with the prerogative of the Crown to grant pardons, and, by the letter of the instructions conveyed to him by Lord Kimberley’s circular of November 1, 1871, he ‘is bound to examine personally each case in which he is called upon to exercise the power entrusted to him °. By the instructions previously conveyed to the Governor of this Colony by Lord Granville, in reply to Lord Belmore’s dispatch of July 14, 1869, he is told that the responsibility of deciding upon such applica- tions rests with the Governor’, and, in reference obviously to advice that may be tendered, it is expressly added that the Governor ‘ has undoubtedly a right to act upon his own independent judgement’. And, finally, after the question has been re-opened by Sir Alfred Stephen, it is repeated by Lord Kimberley’s dispatch of February 17, 1873, that ‘in granting pardons’ the Governor ‘has strictly a right to exercise an independent judgement ’. It seems to be clear that the ‘portion of the Queen’s prerogative > entrusted to the Governor of a Colony, unlike the prerogative in England, is intended to be a reality in its exercise. It is undeniably the case that the representative of the Crown in a Colony, unlike the Crown itself, is subject to a superior or instructing authority. What, then, is the position of the minister, and what is intended to be the nature of the advice he may be called upon to give, and under what circumstances is that advice to be given ? In no sense of responsibility, in this respect, has the

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