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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Chapter

Document type:: Multivolume work

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Part VI. The judiciary

Collection:: Economics Books

cHAP. Iv] THE PREROGATIVE OF MERCY 1401 or not) which may involve Imperial interests and those which, not involving such interests, concern solely the internal administration of the affairs of the Dominion. The sub-committee would suggest that any instruction as to independent action should be limited to such cases which are referred to in fuller language by Lord Carnarvon in his dispatch on this subject to Governor Robinson of May 4, 1875, as cases where ‘ matters of Imperial interest or policy, or the interests of other countries or Colonies are involved’. Lord Carnarvon instances the case of a kidnapper tried and sentenced under an Imperial Act by a Colonial Court, and that of a convict whose sentence was commuted on condition of exile from the Colony. The latter class is disposed of by the sixth clause of the proposed commission. With the former class may be ranged those of offenders who are subjects of other countries, and of political offenders. It is probable that even in the exceptional cases suggested (which of course involve as well internal as external interests) the action of the Governor would generally be in accordance with advice ; and no doubt to act against advice would be to incur a very grave responsibility, though not to the Canadian people. Tt would also seem that in the vast majority of exceptional cases the exception would be found to be tech- nical not real, the substantial interests involved being solely Canadian, in which event the Governor would presumably act under advice. But the sub-committee have freely recognized the possible existence in the excepted classes of Imperial interests, and this possibility furnishes, in their view, the only ground for the application to these classes of a special rule. It appears to them, however, that this special rule may be applied under the general language contained in the 8th clause of the instructions, on which they have already commented, and which if interpreted or limited in the mode they suggest would seem to them to meet every exigency. It now becomes the duty of the sub-committee to refer briefly to the arguments upon which in the case of the Australian colonies it has been affirmed that the independent action of the Governor-General in the exercise of this power should be of a wider range than that which thev suggest as proper in the case of Canada. To the substantial argument for independent action in certain exceptional cases, the sub-committee have already alluded, and they refer to it now only in order to point out that the existence of this exception is not a reason for giving in all cases independent power, but rather the reverse.

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