with the Queen being equally a part of each state and acting in right of a particular realm as a distinct legal person guided only by the advice of the cabinet of that jurisdiction. This means that in different contexts the term Crown may refer to the extra-national institution shared amongst all 16 countries, or to the Crown in each realm considered separately.
However, though the monarchy is therefore no longer an exclusively British institution, having become “domesticated” in each of the realms, it may in the media and legal fields often still be elaborated as the British Crown for reasons historical, of convenience,
or political, regardless of the different, specific, and official national titles and terms used when addressing the Queen of the citizenry in each jurisdiction; for example, in Barbados the Queen is titled as Elizabeth II, Queen of Barbados, or simply the Queen of Barbados, with her full title making mention of her position as queen of the other Commonwealth realms.
To guarantee the continuity of this arrangement after the first realms were established in 1931, the preamble of the Statute of Westminster laid out a convention that any alteration to the line of succession in any one country must be voluntarily approved by the parliaments of all the realms.
This convention was first applied to the abdication of Edward VIII in 1936, and was reasserted by the Perth Agreement of 2011, in which all 16 realms agreed in principle to change the succession rule to absolute primogeniture of non-Catholics. Alternatively, a realm may choose to end its participation in the shared Monarchy.
From a cultural standpoint, the shared nature of the Crown is less clear. In all realms, the sovereign’s name and image and other royal symbols unique to each nation are visible in the emblems and insignia of governmental institutions and militia, leading to the argument that the Crown as a shared link between the Commonwealth realms,
with the Crown in right of each country having unique domestic characteristics. The Queen’s effigy, for example, appears on coins and banknotes in some countries, and an oath of allegiance to the Queen is usually required from politicians, judges, military members and new citizens.
It is also asserted, however, that the Crown throughout the realms remains essentially British and primarily of the United Kingdom, despite the legal and cultural evolution of the Commonwealth since the 1930s. Indeed, by 1959 it was being asserted by Buckingham Palace officials that the Queen was “equally at home in all her realms.”
Monarch’s role in the realms
The monarch is, in theory, the supreme governor of each of the Commonwealth realms, charged with issuing executive orders, commanding the military forces, and creating and administering laws.
However, each country now operates under the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy and the concept of responsible government, meaning that the monarch only exercises her powers on the advice of her Crown ministers, who are usually drawn from, and thus responsible to, the elected chamber of the relevant parliament.
Queen DJ 2While this remains the case for all the Commonwealth realms, their sovereign resides predominantly in her oldest realm, the United Kingdom, and thus carries out her duties there mostly in person.
The Queen appoints viceroys to perform most of the royal constitutional and ceremonial duties on her behalf in the other realms: in each, a governor-general as her personal national representative, as well as a governor as her representative in each of the Australian states.
These appointments are all made on the advice of the prime minister of the country or the premier of the state concerned, though this process may have additional requirements. In certain other cases, the extent to which varies from realm to realm, specific additional powers are reserved exclusively for the monarch—such as the appointment of extra senators to the Canadian Senate, the creation of honours,
or the issuance of letters patent—and on occasions of national importance, the Queen may be advised to perform in person her constitutional duties, such as granting Royal Assent or issuing a royal proclamation. Otherwise, all royal powers, including the Royal Prerogative, are carried out on behalf of the sovereign by the relevant viceroy, which,
apart from those already mentioned, include a lieutenant governor in each province of Canada (appointed by the Governor General of Canada). In the United Kingdom, the Queen appoints Counsellors of State to perform her constitutional duties in her absence.
Queen 7th augustSimilarly, the monarch will perform ceremonial duties in the Commonwealth realms to mark historically significant events. He or she does so most frequently in the United Kingdom and, in the other countries, during tours at least once every five or six years,
meaning the Queen is present in a number of her dominions outside the UK, or acting on behalf of those realms abroad, approximately every other year. For this work, the sovereign receives no salary from any state; instead,
only the expenses incurred for each event (security, transportation, venue, etc.) are, due to the nature of the Crown in the realms, funded by the relevant state individually through the ordinary legislative budgeting process and, if called for, by the organisation that invited the sovereign’s attendance.
These engagements are organised in order for the Crown to honour, encourage, and learn about the achievements or endeavours of individuals, institutions, and enterprises in a variety of areas of the lives of the Queen’s subjects.
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