Statute of Westminster 1931 - Application

Application

The Statute of Westminster applied to Canada, the Irish Free State, and the Union of South Africa without the need for any acts of ratification. Section 10 required the parliaments of the other three dominions, Australia, New Zealand, and the Dominion of Newfoundland, to adopt the statute before it would apply to them as part of their domestic laws.

• The Parliament of Australia passed the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act of 1942. In order to clarify its war powers, this adoption was backdated to 3 September 1939 at the beginning of World War II. However the Colonial Laws Validity Act 1865 continued to have application in the six Australian States and the Australian Capital Territory until the Australia Act of 1986 came into effect.

Sections eight and nine of the Statute of Westminster preserved the provisions of the Australian constitution and of the limitations on the powers of the Australian government.

• Despite the fact that the Statute of Westminster applied to the Dominion of Canada without any need for ratification, the British North America Acts, the current written elements (in 1931) of the Canadian Constitution were excluded from the application of the Statute of Westminster. The exclusion of the British North America Acts was the result of disagreements between the Canadian provinces and the Canadian Federal government over how the British North America Acts could be amended in an independent Canada.

These disagreements were resolved only in time for the passage of the Canada Act of 1982, thus completing the so-called patriation of the Canadian constitution to Canada.

• The Irish Free State never formally adopted the Statute of Westminster, although motions of approval of the Report of the Commonwealth Conference were passed by the Dáil and Seanad in May 1931. The British government had wanted to exclude from the statute the legislation underpinning the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 from which the Free State's constitution emerged, but the Irish government objected and the other Dominions concurred. When an amendment to similar effect was proposed at Westminster by John Gretton, the British government duly voted it down. When Éamon de Valera led Fianna Fáil to victory in the Irish Free State election of 1932, he began removing the monarchical elements of the constitution, beginning with the Oath of Allegiance. Generally, the British thought that that this was morally objectionable -- but legally permitted under the Statute of Westminster. Robert Lyon Moore, a Southern unionist from County Donegal, challenged the legality of the abolition in the courts of the Republic of Ireland, and then he appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC). However, the right of such appeal had been abolished in the meantime. In 1935 the JCPC ruled that both abolitions were valid under the Statute of Westminster.

• The Parliament of New Zealand adopted the Statute of Westminster by passing its Statute of Westminster Adoption Act of 1947 in November 1947, well-after the end of WW II.

• The Dominion of Newfoundland never adopted the Statute of Westminster, especially because of financial troubles and corruption there. By request of the Government of Newfoundland, the United Kingdom resumed its direct rule of Newfoundland in 1934, and it kept that until Newfoundland and Labrador became a province of Canada in 1949.

• Although the Union of South Africa was not among the Dominions that needed to adopt the Statute of Westminster for it to take effect, two laws, the Status of the Union Act, 1934, and the Royal Executive Functions and Seals Act of 1934 were passed to confirm South Africa's status as a sovereign state.