Manuel v Attorney General
A court will not question a statute that states on its face that a dominion has requested and consented to it.
Facts
The Canada Act 1982, passed by the UK Parliament, gave Canada the power to amend its own constitution, a process known as patriation. Section 4 of the Statute of Westminster 1931 provided that no UK Act would extend to a dominion unless it was expressly declared in the Act that the dominion had requested and consented to it. The Canada Act stated that Canada had requested and consented to it. Indigenous Canadian chiefs argued that the Act was invalid, because the consent of the indigenous peoples of Canada had not been obtained.
Legal principle
The Court of Appeal struck out the claim. Slade LJ said that section 4 of the Statute of Westminster required only that the Act contain an express declaration that Canada had requested and consented to it, which it did, and that the court could not go behind that declaration. Megarry V-C, at first instance, said that once an instrument is recognised as being an Act of Parliament, no English court can refuse to obey it or question its validity, and that the courts must obey Acts even if they purport to apply to foreign countries.
Related cases on parliamentary sovereignty
- British Coal Corp v The King [1935] AC 500
- Cheney v Conn [1968] 1 WLR 242
- Edinburgh and Dalkeith Railway Co v Wauchope (1842) 8 Cl & F 710
- Ellen Street Estates Ltd v Minister of Health [1934] 1 KB 590
- Lee v Bude and Torrington Junction Railway Co (1871) LR 6 CP 576
- MacCormick v Lord Advocate 1953 SC 396
- Madzimbamuto v Lardner-Burke [1969] 1 AC 645
- Mortensen v Peters (1906) 8 F (J) 93
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