Floreat the westminster model? A commonwealth caribbean perspective

• Author: A.R. Carnegie
• Position: Professor of Law and Deputy Principal, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Barbados
• Pages: 1-12

FLOREAT THE WESTMINSTER MODEL?

A COMMONWEALTH CARIBBEAN PERSPECTIVE

A.R. CARNEGIE*

Introduction

No statement could surely be more trite and elementary in relation

to the Constitutions of the twelve Caribbean and circum-Caribbean

States which are full members of the Commonwealth1 than the

statement that they are all, with the exception of

Guyana,

Westminster

model Constitutions.

It is not to be supposed that this labelling is all that modern a

development. A similar notion appears in Poyer's

History

of Barbados,

published in 1808, where the author remarks, "[T]he constitution of

Barbadoes is an humble imitation of that great fabric of human

wisdom, the constitution of England."2

Not only is the notion trite and ancient, it has also become legal

doctrine in the Hinds case,3 to which further reference will be made.

In that leading case, the first instance known to this writer in which a

legislative provision of an independent Commonwealth Caribbean State

was judicially declared void for infringing the Constitution's limitations

on the legislative power of Parliament, considerable doctrinal deduction

Professor of Law and Deputy Principal, University of the West Indies,

Cave Hill Campus, Barbados. This paper was included by the

Commonwealth Secretariat in its report of the meeting at which it was

presented, entitled Meeting of Law Officers of Small Commonwealth

Jurisdictions, 5-9 December 1988, Hamilton, Bermuda (mimeographed).

The paper is published here, with the permission of the Commonwealth

Secretariat, from the author's text, without updating to take account of

developments subsequent to the date of the preparation of the paper.

1 Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Belize, Barbados, Dominica,

Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Christopher and Nevis, St. Lucia, St.

Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago.

2 John Poyer, The History of Barbados, etc., London, 1808, 658.

3 Hinds v. Reg. [1977] A.C. 195.