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Recognizing the Variety Among Constitutional Conventions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Andrew D. Heard
Andrew D. Heard
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Abstract

This article argues that the traditional views of constitutional conventions have failed to illuminate the variety among this important group of constitutional rules. A fresh examination of conventional rules explains how they may vary in precision, acceptance and importance to basic constitutional principles and processes. A hierarchical ordering of five types of constitutional rules is proposed as a replacement for the simple dichotomy between usage and convention that is currently accepted. The implications of such an ordering, which reach beyond mere analytic classification, are then discussed.

Résumé

Selon cet article, les théories traditionnelles sur les conventions constitutionnelles ne permettent pas de rendre compte de la diversité des règies constitutionnelles. Une analyse nouvelle des conventions constitutionnelles permet d'expliquer comment celles-ci peuvent différer de précision, d'acception et d'importance par rapport aux principes et processus constitutionnels fondamentaux. L'auteur propose un classement des règies en cinq categories afin de remplacer la dichotomie simple entre les usages et les conventions qui domine la pensée traditionnelle. Les implications d'un tel classement sont ici examinées au-delà des seules considérations de classification.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , March 1989 , pp. 63 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1989

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References

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7 Ibid., 136.

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10 The only legal impediment at present is that the prime minister could not draw the governor general's salary if both positions were held, in order to conform with the Senate and House of Commons Act, R.S.C. c.S.-28.

11 Of course the central condition to be met for such a refusal is that either the current government or an alternative one formed from the opposition could function with a legislative majority without the election.

12 Marshall, Constitutional Conventions, 211.

13 For one example see the use made of constitutional authorities in Pearson's defence of his refusal to treat the 1968 defeat of a tax bill as a loss of confidence. Canada, House of Commons, Debates, February 23, 1968, 6923.Google Scholar

14 For example, the Supreme Court of Canada referred extensively to academic authorities on the nature of the conventions relating to constitutional amendment in Reference re Amendment of the Constitution of Canada (1981), 125 D.L.R. (3d) 1.

15 For a discussion of the importance of viewing conventions as rules of critical morality see Marshall, Constitutional Conventions, 10–12.

16 Although there may still be some support in English Canada for the appointment of one of the Queen's sons as governor general, it is doubtful that this view is shared by anything more than an enthusiastic minority. Certainly there would be no support for the appointment of a distinguished British statesman, soldier or distant member of the royal family. 17 Saywell, John T., The Office of Lieutenant Governor (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1957)Google Scholar, chap. 2.

18 Dicey, The Law of the Constitution, 24.

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23 Reference re Amendment of the Constitution of Canada (1982), 125 D.L.R. (3d) 1 at 88.

24 Cheryl Saunders and Ewart Smith, “Identifying Conventions Associated with the Commonwealth Constitution,” Australian Constitutional Convention, Standing Committee “D,“ Vol. 2, 1982, 1. Unfortunately these authors did not attempt this classification nor suggest how it might be approached.

25 The two lists of conventional rules remain as informal codifications of Australian constitutional rules. For analyses and lists of the conventional rules recognized by the Australian Constitutional Convention, see Sampford, Charles and Wood, David, “Codification of Constitutional Conventions in Australia,” Public Law (Summer 1987), 231Google Scholar; Sampford, Charles, “‘Recognize and Declare': An Australian Experiment in Codifying Constitutional Conventions,” Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 1 (1987), 369.Google Scholar

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27 Mallory, J. R., The Structure of Canadian Government (rev. ed.; Toronto: Gage, 1984), 60.Google Scholar