4 - History (III): Exporting Parliamentary Public Finance

Summary

This chapter describes the export of the model of parliamentary public finance developed in the UK to the colonies, dominions and independent states which emerged from the British Empire. It opens by surveying the critical similarities and differences between public finance in the British and US constitutional traditions, before moving to explain how finance was treated in Canadian and Australasian colonial constitutions. Thereafter, the chapter explains how finance provisions became a form of 'constitutional boilerplate', adopted by independent dominions and republics in the twentieth century. By the conclusion of that constitutional itinerary, it is observed that the distribution of financial authority between Parliament and the executive government in nineteenth century Britain became the norm prevailing in the parliamentary constitutional world. Close attention is paid to the drafting history and provisions of constitutional documents from a number of parliamentary jurisdictions (including Australia, Canada, Indian, Malaysia, Nepal and Nigeria), as well as judicial decisions on public finance throughout the Commonwealth of Nations.