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ANNEX C
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF CONSTITUTIONS OF THE CARIBBEAN DEPENDENT
TERRITORIES, BERMUDA, ST HELENA, ASCENSION, TRISTAN DA CUNHA AND THE
PITCAIRN GROUP OF ISLANDS.
Summary
1.
The Secretary of State is ultimately responsible to Parliament
for the administration and good government of British dependent
territories. So long as this remains so, HMG needs to retain a
degree of authority consonant with that responsibility,
notwithstanding its general policy of encouraging territories to
manage their own affairs.
2. HMG's ultimate sanction in law is the power to suspend or amend
the territories' constitutions, (as in the case of the Turks and
Caicos in July 1986). Short of that power, it relies on the use of
'reserved powers' in the hands of the Governor. In the executive
sphere these take the form of the Governor being able to act
contrary to the advice of his Executive Council or Council of
Ministers: in the legislative sphere, of his being able to refuse
assent to a Bill and reserve it for HM's pleasure (the Secretary of
State also has a power to advise HM to disallow a Bill even where
the Governor has assented) or to secure the passage into law of a
Bill which has been defeated in the legislature. These 'reserved
powers' may either be general across the whole field of Government,
or, as constitutions 'advance' in particular territories, over a
restricted field of special responsibility reserved to the Governor.
3. The territories considered here have reached different stages
of constitutional 'advancement' which makes direct comparison
difficult. Nevertheless, the following comparative analysis
attempts to illustrate the similarities and differences between the
constitutions of the Caribbean dependent territories, Bermuda, St
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