Draft Letters Patent - Exemplification of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900 [1989-04]

Draft Letters Patent - Exemplification of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900 [1989-04]

Foreign Affairs

Public Records

Great Seal

Draft Letters Patent of Queen Elizabeth II exemplifying the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900.

Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Lord Chancellor) and Geoffrey Howe (Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs)

FOI request

Undated, but it's attached to a minute from the Lord Chancellor and Foreign Secretary that was sent to the Prime Minister in early April 1989.

Jason Loch

Australia

Draft of an Exemplification of the Australian Constitution Act

[Royal Sign Manual]

ELIZABETH THE SECOND by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Our other Realms and Territories Queen Head of the Commonwealth Defender of the Faith.

To all to whom these Presents shall come, GREETING:

WHEREAS by the desire and at the request of the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia We have inspected a certain Act passed in the Parliament held in the sixty-third and sixty-fourth years of the Reign of Our Royal Predecessor Queen Victoria and in the year of Our Lord One Thousand Nine Hundred and recorded in the Rolls of Our Chancery entitled
AN ACT TO CONSTITUTE THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA

NOW KNOW YE THAT We have seen fit to exemplify the said Act of Parliament and do by these Presents certify the Act hereunto annexed to be a true and perfect exemplification of the Act hereinbefore referred to and We have caused these Our Letters Patent to be made and have signed them AND WE WILL AND COMMAND Our well beloved and faithful Counsellor James Peter Hymers Lord Mackay of Clashfern Chancellor of Great Britain to seal these Our Letters with the Great Seal of Our Realm

In Witness whereof We have caused these Our Letters to be made Patent

Witness Ourself at Westminster the  .................  day of  .................  in the  ......................  year of Our Reign

By The Queen Herself  Signed with Her Own Hand

OULTON

Sign Manual

This is a typewritten draft.

The Australian Constitution was originally enacted by an Act of the British Parliament entitled the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900. As is customary, copies of the statute were lodged with the House of Lords Record Office and the Public Record Office as official records. Multiple copies were also sent to Australia.

In 1984, the Australian government asked the House of Lords Record Office and the PRO if one of their copies of the Constitution Act could be sent to Australia but were rebuffed. The matter was subsequently raised with the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, who also declined to grant the request However, the PRO would lend their copy of the Act to Australia so it could be displayed during the country's bicentennial celebrations in 1988.

The Australians continued to press the matter, but the British government was unmoved. To break the impasse, the British decided to offer the Australians a certified copy of the Act accompanied by Letters Patent certifying that it was a "true and perfect exemplification" of the original. The Letters Patent would have been signed by Queen Elizabeth II and bound to the facsimile of the Act with cords in the Australian national colors. The British government would also have paid for the Letters Patent to be illuminated by an artist suggested by the Australian government.

Ultimately, this instrument was never issued. The British Parliament passed the Australian Constitution (Public Record Copy) Act 1990 to allow the PRO's copy of the 1900 Act to be given to Australia.