Succession to the Crown Act 2015

This article is about the Australian Commonwealth law passed in 2015. For the similarly-named United Kingdown law, see Succession to the Crown Act 2013.
Succession to the Crown Act 2015
Parliament of Australia
an Act to change the law relating to royal succession and royal marriages, and for related purposes
Citation Succession to the Crown Act 2015 (cth)
Enacted by Australian House of Representatives
Date enacted 17 Mar 2015[1]
Enacted by Australian Senate
Date enacted 19 Mar 2015[1]
Date assented to 19 Mar 2015[1]
Date of Royal Assent 24 Mar 2015[1]
Date commenced 26 Mar 2015[2]
Legislative history
Introduced by Tony Abbott MP
First reading 05 Mar 2015
Second reading 17 Mar 2015
Third reading 17 Mar 2015
First reading 18 Mar 2015[3]
Second reading 19 Mar 2015[4]
Third reading 19 Mar 2015[5]
Related legislation
Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942
Australia Act 1986
Status: Current legislation

The Succession to the Crown Act 2015 is the name of an act of the Commonwealth Parliament of Australia, enacted at the request of all six Australian states under section 51(xxxvii) of the Australian Constitution. The Australian acts were the final part of the Perth Agreement's legislative program agreed by the prime ministers of the Commonwealth realms to modernise the succession to the crowns of the sixteen Commonwealth realms, while continuing to have in common the same monarch and royal line of succession.[6][7] as was the case at the time of the Statute of Westminster 1931.

As the Statute of Westminster ended the ability of the Parliament of the United Kingdom to legislate on behalf of the Commonwealth of Australia, and the Australia Acts eliminated the remaining possibilities for the UK to legislate with effect to the Australian states, Australia had the most challenging legal environment of the Commonwealth realms, as each of the six state governments and the federal government has a separate direct relationship with the monarch.

It was brought into effect simultaneously with the similar laws enacted by the other Commonwealth realms after the Governor-General proclaimed the law to commence at "the beginning of 26 March 2015 by United Kingdom time".[2]

Background

Main article: Perth Agreement

Prior to the Succession to the Crown Act, the succession to the throne of Australia, like all Commonwealth realms, was controlled by a system of male-preference primogeniture,[8] under which succession passed first to the monarch's or nearest dynast's legitimate sons (and to their legitimate issue) in order of birth, and subsequently to their daughters and their legitimate issue, again in order of birth, so that sons always inherit before their sisters, elder children inherit before younger, and descendants inherit before collateral relatives.

Succession is governed by the Acts of Union 1707, which restates the provisions of the Act of Settlement 1701, and the Bill of Rights 1689. These laws originally restricted the succession to legitimate descendants of Sophia, Electress of Hanover (the mother of George I), and bar those who are Roman Catholics or who have married Roman Catholics.[9] The descendants of those who are debarred for being or marrying Roman Catholics, however, may still be eligible to succeed.[10] By convention iterated in the preamble to the Statute of Westminster 1931, the line of succession cannot be altered in any realm without the assent of the parliaments of the other 15 realms,[11] leading to the adoption of the Perth Agreement at the 22nd Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in October 2011.

State legislation

The Council of Australian Governments agreed that the best way to meet Australia's obligations under the Perth Agreement was to use section 51(xxxvii) of the Constitution of Australia to allow the Commonwealth Parliament to alter the Treason Act 1351, Bill of Rights 1689, Act of Settlement 1701, Acts of Union 1707, Acts of Union 1800, and to repeal the Royal Marriages Act 1772, in as far as they are a part of the law of the Commonwealth Australia, the Australian states, and Territories of Australia.

The States were careful to include provision that the complex interrelationship[12] between the Sovereign, the Commonwealth and the states was not affected by the Act. Unlike the Canadian provinces, Australian states have relationships with the Crown which are independent of the Commonwealth.[13] For example, a Canadian lieutenant governor is appointed by the Governor General of Canada on the advice of the prime minister and subject to their authority,[14] whereas the governors of the Australian states are appointed by the Sovereign on the direct advice of the premier of the state in question,[15] and are not subject to the authority of the Governor-General. The governors hold a dormant commission to assume the position of Administrator of the Commonwealth should the Governor-General die, resign or be absent from Australia. A dormant commission can be revoked by the Commonwealth, such as when the dormant commission of Sir Colin Hannah, Governor of Queensland, was revoked for making partisan political comments shortly before the 1975 constitutional crisis.

State Name of Requesting Act Royal Assent granted
Queensland Succession to the Crown Act 2013 (QLD) 14 May 2013[16]
New South Wales Succession to the Crown (Request) Act 2013 (NSW) 1 July 2013[17]
Tasmania Succession to the Crown (Request) Act 2013 (TAS) 12 September 2013[18]
Victoria Succession to the Crown (Request) Act 2013 (VIC) 22 October 2013[19]
South Australia Succession to the Crown (Request) Act 2014 (SA) 26 June 2014[20]
Western Australia Succession to the Crown Act 2015 (WA) 3 March 2015[21]

The Parliament of the Northern Territory also passed its own legislation, the Succession to the Crown (Request) (National Uniform Legislation) Act 2013 (NT) however, this was not constitutionally required, as the Commonwealth Parliament retains the right to legislate for the Northern Territory. The Northern Territory legislation received royal assent from the Administrator on 8 November 2013.[22]

Unlike the states, the relationship between Australia's self-governing territories and the sovereign is mediated by the Federal Government, similar to the situation in Canada.

Provisions

Gender

Males born after 28 October 2011 no longer precede their elder sisters in the line of succession.[23] The first in the line of succession to be affected by this on the date the changes came into effect were the children of Lady Davina Lewis, her son Tāne (born 2012) and her daughter Senna (born 2010), who were reversed in the order of succession, becoming 29th and 28th in line respectively.[24]

Marriage to Roman Catholics

Marrying a Roman Catholic no longer disqualifies a person from succeeding to the Crown.[23] The explanation published when the bill had been introduced mentioned that those who had lost their places in the line of succession by marrying a Roman Catholic would regain their places, but that those "with a realistic prospect of succeeding to the Throne" would not be affected. The first in the line of succession to be affected by this change on the date the changes came into effect was George Windsor, Earl of St Andrews, who had married a Catholic in 1988, and was restored to the line of succession in 34th place, after the Duke of Kent.[24] The provision of the Act of Settlement requiring the monarch to be a Protestant continues.

The Royal Marriages Act 1772 was repealed. This archaic law required the consent of the Sovereign for any descendent of King George II to marry; hundreds of years after the death of George II, the number of people to whom the act applied was quite large, and almost none of them had any realistic chance of succeeding to the Crown.

For example, the male-line descendants of King Ernest Augustus I of Hanover, the son of King George III who succeeded to the Kingdom of Hanover when the Personal Union between the United Kingdom and Hanover came to an end, lost their crown in 1866, and their British titles in 1918, but are male-line descendants of George II. As such, they continued to be required to seek permission for their marriages from the British monarch, so that their marriages would be legal in the United Kingdom, where the family had a large amount of property.

Since the Succession to the Crown Act came into force, only the first six persons in line to the throne require the sovereign's approval to marry. Marriage without the sovereign's consent would disqualify the person and the person's descendants from the marriage from succeeding to the Crown. However, the marriage would still be legally valid.[23]

Marriages legally void under the Royal Marriages Act 1772 will be treated as never having been void, except for purposes relating to the[25] succession to the Crown, provided all the following conditions are met:

  1. Neither party to the marriage was one of the six persons next in the line of succession to the Crown at the time of the marriage.
  2. No consent was sought under section 1 of that Act, or notice given under section 2 of that act, in respect of the marriage.
  3. In all the circumstances it was reasonable for the person concerned not to have been aware at the time of the marriage that the Act applied to it.
  4. No person acted before the coming into force of the 2015 Act on the basis that the marriage was void.

Consequential amendments

Other changes to Australia's law were making "subject to provisions of" the Australian act the provisions that involve the Crown in the Acts of Union 1707, between England and Scotland, and in the Acts of Union 1800, between Great Britain and Ireland. Also, several sections in the Bill of Rights 1689 and the Act of Settlement 1701 involving marriages with "papists" (Catholics) were repealed, and any references to provisions relating to "the succession to, or possession of, the Crown" were made to include, by reference, the provisions of the Australian act.[23]

However, the sections that ban Catholic succession were not repealed. Catholics are still officially termed as being "naturally dead and deemed to be dead" in terms of succession. This discrimination was first legislated in the Bill of Rights 1689.[26]

As the monarch's eldest son will no longer automatically be heir apparent, the Treason Act 1351 was also amended, so that encompassing the death of the monarch's eldest son and heir is now extended to murdering the heir of whatever gender. Another amendment to the Treason Act is that, whereas it had been treason to "violate" the monarch's eldest son's wife, it is now only treason if the eldest son is also the heir to the throne.

Notes

    1. 1 2 3 4 "Succession to the Crown Bill 2015". Australian Parliament House. Retrieved 16 April 2015.
    2. 1 2 Cosgrove, Peter (24 March 2015), Succession to the Crown Commencement Proclamation 2015, Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, retrieved 26 March 2015
    3. ↑ "Australian Senate Hansard - Succession to the Crown Bill First Reading Debate". Australian Parliament House. Australian Parliament House. Retrieved 17 April 2015.
    4. ↑ "Australian Senate Hansard - Succession to the Crown Bill Second Reading Debate". Australian Parliament House. Australian Parliament House. Retrieved 17 April 2015.
    5. ↑ "Australian Senate Hansard - Succession to the Crown Bill Third Reading Debate". Australian Parliament House. Australian Parliament House. Retrieved 17 April 2015.
    6. ↑ "What is a Commonwealth Realm?". Royal Household. Archived from the original on December 2, 2010. Retrieved 6 October 2009.
    7. ↑ Royal Household. "Her Majesty the Queen". Queen's Printer. Archived from the original on June 9, 2013. Retrieved 23 January 2011.
    8. ↑ Bogdanor, Vernon (1995). The Monarchy and the Constitution. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 42. ISBN 978-0-19-829334-7.
    9. ↑ Act of Settlement, 1700, Section 3, retrieved 8 April 2014
    10. ↑ Bogdanor 1995, p. 55
    11. ↑ The Statute of Westminster 1931, CHAPTER 4 22 and 23 Geo 5, retrieved 8 April 2014
    12. ↑ "The Queen's Role in Australia". .royal.gov.uk. Archived from the original on April 17, 2015. Retrieved 17 April 2015.
    13. ↑ Twomey, Anne (2006). The Chameleon Crown: The Queen and Her Australian Governors. Sydney: The Federation Press. ISBN 9781862876293.
    14. ↑ Saywell, John T. (1957). The Office of Lieutenant Governor: A Study in Canadian Government and Politics. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. pp. 13–14.
    15. ↑ "Australia Acts 1986". comlaw.gov.au. Retrieved 17 April 2015.
    16. ↑ "Succession to the Crown Act 2013 (QLD)" (PDF). legislation.qld.gov.au. Retrieved 16 April 2015.
    17. ↑ "Succession to the Crown (Request) Act 2013 (NSW)" (PDF). Retrieved 16 April 2015.
    18. ↑ "Succession to the Crown (Request) Act 2013 (TAS)". thelaw.tas.gov.au. Retrieved 16 April 2015.
    19. ↑ "Succession to the Crown (Request) Act 2013 (VIC)" (PDF). legislation.vic.gov.au. Retrieved 16 April 2015.
    20. ↑ "Succession to the Crown (Request) Act 2014 (SA)" (PDF). legislation.sa.gov.au. Retrieved 16 April 2015.
    21. ↑ "Succession to the Crown Act 2015 (WA)". Western Australia Legislation. Retrieved 16 April 2015.
    22. ↑ "Succession to the Crown (Request) (National Uniform Legislation) Act 2013 (NT)". Northern Territory Legislation Database. Retrieved 16 April 2015.
    23. 1 2 3 4 "Succession to the Crown Act 2015 (Cwlth)". Comlaw.gov.au. Retrieved 17 April 2015.
    24. 1 2 "What do the new royal succession changes mean?" at Royal Central website, 26 March 2015 (retrieved 30 March 2015).
    25. ↑ The London Gazette: no. 48638. p. 7956. 12 June 1981.
    26. ↑ "Text of Bill of Rights". Avalon Law. Yale University.

    See also

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