Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

submittedVersion

Publication Date

5-2018

Abstract

A troubling veil of mystery still shrouds the central institution of the British Constitution – the Crown. In this paper, I examine the modern utility of five historical doctrines: the doctrine of the “King's two bodies”; the doctrine that the Crown is a “corporation sole”; the doctrine that the King can “do no wrong”; the doctrine that (high) public offices are “emanations” of the Crown; and the doctrine that the Crown is “one and indivisible”. Using some insights from social ontology, the history of office in the Western legal tradition, and the sociology of role and status, I argue that the first four of these doctrines can be refashioned into a conception of the Crown as an office. An office is an enduring institutional entity to which individuals bear a relationship from time to time, but which is separate from any individual incumbent and is to be considered in legal analysis as a separate acting subject. Using the logic of office, official personality and official action, I distinguish between the Queen, the Crown, Her Majesty's Government and the Commonwealth and argue that together they provide a serviceable model of the modern British Constitution. The final doctrine, however, must be abandoned – the Crown is plural and divisible and this must be taken into account when using the Crown to reason about the UK's relationship to other constitutional orders.

Keywords

Crown, office, executive government, state theory, Commonwealth, British Empire

Discipline

Constitutional Law | State and Local Government Law

Research Areas

Innovation, Technology and the Law

Publication

Cambridge Law Journal

Volume

77

Issue

2

First Page

298

Last Page

320

ISSN

0008-1973

Identifier

10.1017/S0008197318000338

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008197318000338

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