In an earlier blog, I talked about an exceptional decision by the House of Keys to override the objections of the Legislative Council in order to pass an Act of Tynwald without their consent. Chris Thomas raised the issue that this may have been the first time the Keys had used this power

Previous examples were certainly not put before the House during the debate on the motion to over-ride the Council. Has it been used before? If it hasn’t, then its use may be particularly significant of the direction of travel in the relationship between the Keys and the Council.

Before 1961, the consent of the Council was always required for an Act of Tynwald to pass, and indeed government Bills started in the Council, as the Attorney General sat there. The Isle of Man Constitution Act 1961 s.10(1) created a complex system where a majority, or in some cases a special majority of 16, of the Keys could dispense with the consent of the Council to legislation, if it had not been forthcoming for two years. The Constitution (Amendment) Act 1978 changed the period by which the Council could delay the process to one year. In 2006 the process was notably simplified by the Constitution Act 2006 s.1(2), which allows the Keys to override the Council by a motion passed by a special majority of 17, rather than requiring the legislation to go through the legislative process repeatedly. The 2006 legislation will also make it much easier to identify attempts to exercise the over-ride.

The existence of the override process may, of course, have a subtle influence on the Council even when not invoked. But although the process under the 2006 Act has not been used before, it appears that this provision of the 1961 Act was used at least once, and on a further occasion was about to be used before the Council preferred to pass the Bill than have it passed without their involvement.

The first instance to come close to a Council over-ride was, interestingly, a Bill to change the composition of the Legislative Council. The Isle of Man Constitution (Amendment) Bill 1964 was introduced to remove the Second Deemster from the Council. The Bill had been rejected by the Council in two sessions, and was reintroduced to the Keys “pursuant” to s.10. In the third session, it was given all three readings in the Keys on the 27 October 1964, with the express intention that it then either be accepted by the Council, or become law in any case through the override provision. The Council eventually accepted it, but with considerable reluctance – the 5:3 majority included an Attorney-General who finished his contribution with “I heartily disagree with the matters proposed in the Bill. I am nevertheless glad in a way that the Bill has been passed so that it will not become law by default, and I beg to move that the Bill do pass.“. The Bill became the Isle of Man Constitution Amendment Act 1965.

The other example, which did result in a Council override, was in relation to the Licensing (Sunday Opening) Bill 1978, which became law as the Licensing (Sunday Trading) Act 1979. The Legislative Council explicitly took the final vote on the Bill, on 9 January 1979, knowing that if they did not pass it, the Bill would become law in any case. The Bill failed with a 4:5 split. There was an argument put that the Council should accede to the inevitable, but it did not convince, perhaps in part because it concerned the moral issue of drinking on Sunday. Mr Kneale, for instance strongly felt that “even though we know it is an academic exercise now that the Bill will go through, we should, if we feel that our opposition is right and justified, still maintain it”.

It definitely is unusual for the Keys to invoke this power, but it is not unprecedented. For it to be exercised once, albeit on a very significant constitutional issue, is interesting but does not necessarily constitute a trend. If the Keys begin to exercise this power consistently as a way to resolve differences with the Council, such a trend would be important.

On the 21^st of November 2017, Tynwald debated the Second Report of the Select Committee on the Functioning of Tynwald, debate having been delayed by illness. Tynwald was invited to approve a number of important recommendations, which I will strand into a number of categories.

Firstly, the composition and role of the Legislative Council. The Select Committee recommended a specific job description for MLCs (passed); that the President of Tynwald should be tasked with encouraging a wide range of candidates to the Legislative Council (passed); that MHKs should recuse themselves from elections to the Legislative Council if they are candidates (an amendment by Mr Ashford was passed by MHKs, but not by MLCs, so the resolution as a whole was held over to a combined vote in December, being passed at that point with Mr Ashford’s amendment); that any examination of the pay of MLCs should not result in an increase in the overall cost of Member’s remuneration, but should result in a level sufficient to allow everyone to serve, and attract a diverse collection of community members (passed). One issue in the composition of the Council, the role of the Lord Bishop, was left until the new incumbent had settled in, and the Archbishop of York had expressed his view. The Select Committee considered only minor changes to the place of the Bishop, categorised by Mr Skelly as “a bit light”. In response to an amendment from Mr Ashford requiring the Select Committee to make recommendations on the Bishop’s role and ability to vote in Tynwald, Mr Watterson saw this as already planned for the next report from the Select Committee. Despite this support, the amendment failed in the Legislative Council, despite being passed by the Keys.

The Speaker, Mr Watterson, moving the motion, noted that previous debate about the Legislative Council had been negative, and that it was important to focus on what the Legislative Council, particular a more diverse Legislative Council, could do in the future. A duty on the President to encourage diversity was part of this, but it was a theme that also found expression in the emphasis on MLCs being full-time officers whose remuneration should not limit it to the better off, and in consideration of the age requirement of MLC candidates. Diversity in Tynwald was a particular concern of members such as Mrs Poole-Wilson.

Secondly, and again concerning the Legislative Council, the Select Committee made a complex set of recommendations in relation to MLCs in executive roles. The Select Committee recommended that Tynwald should express the opinion that the Chief Minister should only appoint an MLC as a Minister in exceptional circumstances, and that these should be explained to Tynwald – not going as far as members such as Mrs Beecroft would have liked to have seen (passed). In relation to Departmental Members, the Select Committee put a menu of mutually exclusive options to Tynwald, ranging from excluding MLCs from being Departmental Members entirely, to no change to the current practice. Tynwald adopted the last, with the slight clarification proposed by Mr Harmer that MLCs should act as Departmental Members for only one Department.

The Speaker, moving the motion, acknowledged that the retention of Departmental Members was contrary to the recommendations of Lord Lisvane, who he argued had not properly understood the workings of a system which, on its face, raised serious concerns about the separation of powers. He noted that in a small legislature, the Departmental Member scheme could function as “an apprentice scheme where future Minsters can be tested in Government work”.

Thirdly, a number of broader constitutional reforms. This included a principle that the Government should not automatically have a majority in Tynwald or the House of Keys (passed); that the Standing Orders Committee should consider amendments to the Constitution Acts, particularly around the eligibility of candidates to stand for Tynwald (passed); that the method of electing the Chief Minister be referred to the Select Committee for report by February 2018 (passed, but overtaken by events); and that  each appropriation and taxation measure be based on a policy decision taken by Tynwald and the appropriation or taxation decision made by the House of Keys voting alone (failed).

More broadly, this debate had a number of interesting features.

Firstly, the structure of recommendations in relation to MLCs as Departmental Members was intended to simplify a complex decision where the Select Committee had not been clearly able to identify a consensus. As The Speaker said “We agreed that we would recommend the various options in the order of greatest change, taking the option for change which represents the most radical recommendation first, on the basis that if one option succeeds then all others fail immediately. This will reduce the need for tactical voting and reflect more straightforwardly the will of Tynwald”. This is an evolution of the approach the Speaker had taken to the motion which established the Select Committee, and helped structure a wide-ranging and complex debate.

Secondly, the debate made it clear that there were members who were in favour of a substantial, perhaps complete, adoption of the recommendations of the Lisvane Report, and who found the Report disappointing, or as Mr Shimmins, put it “woeful”. The Select Committee choose not to adopt some Lisvane recommendations, and developed recommendations of its own, leading Mr Cannan, as part of strong criticism of lack of change to the Departmental Member system, to categorise a shift of attention from the Lisvane Report to “what I, perhaps maybe slightly unfairly, would term the “Watterson Report””. Equally, other members such as Mr Boot found the Lisvane Report seriously lacking, particularly in relation to detailed understanding of the working of the system as a whole, and clearly welcomed scepticism over its value. Lord Lisvane made it clear that his recommendations could be adopted or rejected wholesale, although as I noted at the time there were considerable synergies between different recommendations. This is clearly the future of the Report – a toolkit for consideration, rather than a manifesto for major constitutional reform.

Thirdly, as the vote over the appointment of Chief Minister’s made clearer still, the focus of the current constitutional debate is on the role of MLCs in relation to the Executive; with the exception of the vote of the Lord Bishop, not in relation to its legislative work.

Responsible government came late to the Isle of Man. The landmark reforms of 1866, linked to the coming of democratic elections to the Isle of Man for the first time, were a long way from responsible government as understood in the British Empire of the mid-19^th century. Responsible government, based on the imperial governor exercising less authority, and a ministry responsible to the elected colonial assembly exercising more, was well established in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia by the mid-19^th century.  The Lieutenant-Governor of the Isle of Man, however, remained the dominant executive officer in the island until well into the 20^th century; only being replaced as chair of the Executive Council by a chairman elected by Tynwald in 1980, and since 1990 by the Chief Minister of the Council of Ministers. Today, the executive arm of the Manx government is led by the Chief Minister, who is elected by Tynwald in an open ballot. As noted elsewhere, the most recent appointment of the Chief Minister was decided by the (unelected) Legislative Council, following a failure to secure a majority for a single candidate in the vote of the House of Keys.

On 19^th December 2017, the House of Keys passed a motion on the Council of Ministers (Amendment) Bill 2016, sending the Bill to Tynwald under the Constitution Act 2006 s.1(2). This section of the Constitution Act allows a special majority of 17 of the 24 MHKs to bypass the Legislative Council, and the motion received exactly 17 votes. Mr Ashford stressed that the motion would allow the Bill to proceed for signature by the Keys in January, but no MHK was then obliged to sign it, raising the possibility that the Bill may fail to secure the 17 signatures needed in January. Given that the motion passed, despite a number of MHKs being absent (categorised by Mr Malarkey as supporters of the Bill), this seems unlikely.

The Bill provides that the Chief Minister can in future be appointed by at least 13 MHKs voting in the House of Keys, rather than by a majority of the members of Tynwald voting in Tynwald; and, as Dr Allinson stressed, allows the Keys alone  to decide whether to dissolve the Council of Ministers through a motion of no confidence.

This shifting of power from a Tynwald Court including Members of the Legislative Council to the directly-elected House of Keys is consistent with the recommendations of the Lisvane Review. Stressing the lack of a direct mandate for MLCs, Lord Lisvane had recommended that “MLCs should not vote on the appointment of the Chief Minister (and, as a corollary, not vote on a motion of no confidence” (p.34). The reform was not, however, portrayed as driven by the Lisvane Review. Mr Thomas, the sponsor of the motion, stressed that this change had already been unanimously passed by the House of Keys “before Lord Lisvane had even arrived in the Isle of Man … this initiative is an Isle of Man initiative initiated by a proud Manxman” (308 K135). Reform as a patriotic measure was also stressed by other supporters, including Mr Malarky and Ms Edge.

That is not to say, however, that the momentum created by the Lisvane Review was not acknowledged. Mr Thomas expressed concern that the recommendations of the Lisvane Report in general were “being strangled slowly”. Mr Thomas minimised the power of appeals to tradition, emphasising that the Council of Ministers system dated back only to 1990 – “it is hardly a longstanding tradition”. True, but the longstanding tradition that is being altered is the emphasis on Tynwald Court, as opposed to the House of Keys. Mrs Caine may have captured it better when, also making explicit reference to the Lisvane Review, she noted that “if approving this motion takes us one step further on the road to reforming the role of the Upper Chamber, that would be a bonus in my mind”. Mr Ashford saw the measure – I think accurately – as consistent with a shift of the members of the Legislative Council to a purely scrutiny role; a view other members echoed. Mr Cannan, who had originally moved the Bill, argued that the change would strengthen the position of the Legislative Council as a revising Chamber, “giving more credibility to their views on legislation unencumbered by any significant role in electing the Chief Minister”.

The current Chief Minister, Mr Quayle, opposed the motion. He felt that the Chief Minister needed to command the support of both the House of Keys and the Legislative Council. “We are not Westminster, we are not Jersey, we are not Ireland, where obviously the House of Commons vote for the chief minister; we are a small jurisdiction. We have been going now for over a thousand years, and I believe having the support of both areas will help a Chief Minister, whoever they are, going forward”. Mr Quayle saw the balance of power as already lying with the Keys, and thought that the Select Committee on the Functioning of Tynwald should report before any change was made. He also stressed that recent changes to the voting process, where the Keys voted first, then the Council, and both votes are public, had dealt with the problem “it is not that the votes of the Legislative Council can overturn the majority because no one knows what they were anymore”. Mr Ashford pointed out that, if the Legislative Council were bound to vote in lines with the majority of the MHKs (clearly not a formal legal rule), “then it makes no difference whether they vote to begin with or not”.

Mr Boot pointed out that the change in appointment of the Chief Minister will result in fewer individuals voting on the appointment of the Chief Minister, which he categorised as “concentrating the power into fewer hands – it does not seem very democratic to me – within our Parliamentary process”. Mr Malarkey robustly rejected this categorisation – “it is 24 votes who have the mandate of the people behind them”.  When, as seems likely, this Bill becomes law, we will have seen a significant constitutional change which emphasises the centrality of the  directly elected House of Keys to the Manx constitution. 2018 is likely to be an exciting year for Manx constitutional reform – given the mood of the Keys in this most recent debate, it may be a year of significant change in relation to the Legislative Council. A key question Tynwald will need to resolve is how to weigh the benefits of shifting power more clearly to democratically elected representatives, and the consequences of focusing power in such representatives.

 

 

In Fortean Times 359, Dr Jacob Middleton discusses the lingering impact of belief in witchcraft into the 19th century. In particular, he discusses witch-bleeding: “This practice involved drawing the blood of a supposed witch as a means of dispelling her magical power”.  In the Isle of Man before the first Criminal Code of 1817, this belief had legal potency.

Manx customary law had the doctrine of “bloodwipe” (earlier bloodwite), where drawing blood from a victim was punished by a set fine. The Bystander’s Case of 1581 is recorded in Liber Placitorum (one of the sets of court records of the Manx courts). In that case it was found that bloodwipe was to be excused if the victim had used witchcraft against the defendant, and had spilt their blood in order to cancel the enchantment.

Bloodwipe, and its witch bleeding defence, survived until the first Manx Criminal Code of 1817.

In another very long session, Tynwald Court returned to the process of considering matters raised by the Lisvane Review on 18 July 2017, now available on rolling hansard.

The most significant development was discussion of the First Interim Report of the Select Committee on the Functioning of Tynwald – Remit and Work Plan. This report sought to inform Tynwald and members of the remit of the Select Committee, set out a general plan of work, and request “a modest change to our remit”. In particular the Select Committee asked for the authority to consider whether MLCs should be able to vote on the appointment of the Chief Minister, whether the Lord Bishop should retain his vote, whether a sitting MHK should be eligible to be nominated as an MLC, and a number of changes to the draft Bill procedure. The Select Committee took as part of its remit that they should accept in principle that MLCs should not vote on measures exclusively on taxation or appropriation, that MLCs should not be Ministers other than in exceptional circumstances, and that the Bishop should remain a MLC.

The report was only briefly debated. Mr Hooper focussed on two points where he felt that a majority of members of Tynwald were in agreement: that the Bishop should lose his vote, and that MLCs should be prohibited from voting on the Chief Minister. Mr Robertshaw, who had supported the loss of the Bishop’s vote, on reflection felt that the issue needed to go to the Committee. The motion was accepted by 23 to 1 in the Keys, and unanimously by the Council.

Debate may have been so brief because of two very specific motions moved by Mr Hooper further down the agenda.

He moved that Tynwald direct the Select Committee that the Bishop should not retain his vote, and that the Select Committee should consider ways to implement this change: in other words, moving the issue of the loss of the vote from the consider in principle, to the consider implementation section of the Select Committee remit (see my earlier post). Mr Hooper’s principal argument was that the Keys were already convinced that the Bishop should no longer vote, and that as the democratically elected chamber, their judgment should prevail. Mr Malarkey countered that it had been made very clear to past Chief Ministers that if the Bishop lost his vote, the Bishopric would be abolished. Mr Corkish agreed, but further reemphasised his view of the distinctive voice of the Bishop in Tynwald (“and the Bishop cometh free”). Mr Shimmins reemphasised the parallel with the Attorney General as a non-voting member, and was prepared to accept the loss of the Bishopric if that followed from the loss of the vote. Mrs Beecroft drew a sharp distinction between the Bishop’s voice – which she valued – and his vote, which she thought was inappropriate. The Chief Minister, and Mr Cregeen, both emphasised the value of religion and morality in Tynwald.

Mr Hooper then quoted my Law and Religion blog entry on last months debate, and in particular the possible parallels with Jersey, as indicating that losing the vote would not necessarily result in losing the ecclesiastical officer, although Mr Corkish interjected that “No, it is different”, perhaps giving more emphasis to the difference between a Bishopric and a Deanery. The motion was lost in both the Keys (10 to 13) and the Council (2 to 6).

His second motion would have made a similar change in relation to the Legislative Council voting for the Chief Minister – again, moving it from discussion of principal to implementation. Debate was briefer, and the motion was firmly passed by the Keys (17 to 6), but not by the Council (2 to 6), so the motion failed to carry.

So the Select Committee remit will now extend to whether the Bishop should retain his vote, but not whether he should retain his seat. The Select Committee will report back on this as a matter of principle. Additionally, the Select Committee will report back on the principle of MLCs involvement in appointment of a Chief Minister – despite a clear majority of MHKs clearly supporting the principle, and wishing the Select Committee to move to implementation.

Tynwald had its first debate of the Lisvane Review last week, on the 20^th of June 2017. It was a long debate, culminating in a long sequence of formal votes and divisions. The end result is that some Lisvane proposals have been left in abeyance, with others to be considered by a Select Committee tasked to report on changes required for their implementation (Part A); or to give further consideration as to their merits (Part B). The Committee will be reporting back on the Legislative Council by October 2017, and other elements by December 2017. Tynwald has now made the first transcript of the debate available through their invaluable Rolling Hansard, and I had five initial thoughts on rereading the debate.

First, constitution making, or extensive revision, is really, really, difficult. It is a common courtesy for legislators to praise the standard of a debate, but having studied Manx legislative debates back some way, I was struck by the quality of this debate. In particular, there was a marked absence of the deference towards UK models sometimes found in Tynwald debates in the past. Approaches drawn from Westminster to common problems are of interest, but first there needs to be an agreement that the problems are common, and even then a Westminster solution is only one of a number that Tynwald might choose to follow. Some commentators have seen the outcome of the debate as a classic way to kill reform: my view is that this was a sensible way to progress reform, but of course we will have to see what comes out of the debates later in the year.

Second, the idea of having a Nominations Commission with a strong role in the appointment to the Legislative Council in future proved very controversial. It appealed neither to supporters of radical reform such as some form of direct election to the Council, nor to more conservative members who would look for a modest refinement of a system which kept the authority in the hands of the (elected) MHKs. The Nominations Commission was put forward to Part B of the remit of the Select Committee, but  failed to secure a majority in either the Keys or the Council, although it did tie in the Keys. Neither did the idea of such a Commission being under a duty to increase diversity in the Legislative Council make it into Part B. It is of course possible that this part of Lisvane will be returned to, but at the moment it seems unlikely that a Nominations Commission approach to the Council has any real traction. At most, it may end up being considered as a non-exclusive way of bringing more candidates forward for consideration by the Keys.

Third, the place of the Lord Bishop also came into question, with a number of members supporting a voice not a vote, drawing an analogy with the Attorney but not, although it is perhaps more apt, the Dean of Jersey. This is a topic I have a particular interest in, and a guest blog on Law & Religion will be appearing this week.  In formal terms, the outcome of the debate was that a statement that the Bishop should remain in the Council was put into Part A, while a proposal that “the Bishop should not retain his vote” failed to be referred to the Select Committee.  The latter was carried by the Keys by a majority of 15 to 9, but rejected by the Council by a majority of 5 to 2. Given the dominance of the elected Keys in Tynwald, there is a real medium-term possibility of the Bishop remaining on the Legislative Council, but losing his vote.

Fourth, the dominant theme emerging from the debate – with more focus I felt than from Lisvane itself – was the position of the Council. What is it for, how is it composed, how does it interact with the Keys, how does it relate to the executive? In particular, the debate (and indeed recent events in the Island) highlight the important ways that MLCs have power beyond being part of a revising chamber.  It would not be surprising to see this become the centre of gravity of any immediate proposals for reform, with other reforms being consequent to changes or clarifications of the Legislative Council’s place in the Manx Constitution. This is very much a continuance of a national discussion dating back to before 1917.

Finally, the call for Tynwald to address the need to make its membership more diverse was put into Part A by a considerable majority, despite limited discussion. There was recognition of how difficult it was to identify concrete steps towards this desired goal, although a number of members made it clear that they rejected positive discrimination (which was not, interestingly, at any point proposed by Lord Lisvane). Along with some members of Tynwald, I think that diversity is the area where Lord Lisvane had the least to say about means rather than end. The Select Committee could look to measures being discussed in neighbouring islands, but will face the fundamental challenge that some of the mechanisms adopted elsewhere depend upon a party system, a mechanism which has much less traction on the Island.

Oxford Brookes University is pleased to offer a full-time PhD Studentship in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, starting in September 2017.  Applications are invited for a PhD Studentship in Regulating the financial abuse of religious capital. The supervisory team will be led by Prof Peter Edge. This proposed PhD project seeks to address the application of general criminal and civil law doctrines of fraud, and civil law doctrines of undue influence, to the exercise of religious power.  A full project description will be included in the application pack.

The successful candidate will receive an annual payment of £16,000 as a stipend towards living expenses for a maximum of three years.

Home/EU fees will be covered by the School for a maximum of three years. The studentships are open to both Home/EU and International students. However, owing to the funding available, awards will be funded at the level of Home/EU research degree fees. Therefore International applicants should be aware that they would need to fund the difference between the Home/EU and International research degree fees each year. Please note that all fees rise by approximately 4% each year.

Please see this page for information on current International fees: http://www.brookes.ac.uk/studying-at-brookes/finance/postgraduate-finance—international-students/research-degree-fees-for-international-students/

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Eligibility: We are looking to recruit a candidate of the highest quality and who is capable of submitting a Ph.D. thesis within 3 years. Applicants are expected to have completed a relevant Masters degree prior to the Studentship start date. The Studentship holder may also be required to complete supplementary research methods training in their first year of study. Applicants should also be able to demonstrate strong research capabilities and be fluent in spoken and written English.

 

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Turkey’s Prime Minister has today withdrawn legislation which would have pardoned men convicted of sex with underage girls if they married them. The Manx penal code, for at least two hundred and fifty years, took an even more controversial stance.

As in England, Manx customary law defined rape as the ravishment of a female against her will. Rape was felony, and so would have been expected to carry the penalty of death by hanging. The punishment, and the procedure by which punishment was determined, was, however, unique. Where both the offender and the victim were unmarried (Whaltrough (1552) Q.P.), and presumably not barred from marriage by consanguinity,  punishment was chosen by the victim. She was presented by the judge of the court with a sword, a rope, and a ring. These items were passed to her by the state official normally responsible for passing sentence, and with them passed the power to dispose of the felon. She could choose whether to hang him with the rope, cut off his head with the sword, or marry him with the ring (Customary Laws (no.2) 1577 s.15). To gloss slightly, this procedure carried with it two forms of capital punishment, and decapitation was unusual in Manx law. It may be we are seeing a remnant of an execution, castration, marriage choice.

Although the concept of marriage as a punishment for rape can be found in the practice of early English and European courts, and in particular in the Scots Statute of Keneth of 834, the implementation was uniquely Manx. The customary procedure survived very late, until the modernisation of Manx law carried out by the Criminal Code 1817 replaced it with a felony punishment in line with English law.

I am not aware of any instance when the victim chose so that their rapist suffered the normal penalties for felony. Given the small size of the Manx community, the pressure on the victim to spare the life of their attacker must have been very considerable.

Sir Michael Birt gave the 2016 Caroline Weatherill Memorial Lecture in October 2016 (available at http://www.iomlawsociety.co.im/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/2016-Sir-Michael-Birt.pdf). He took as his topic “The power of the UK to legislate for the Crown Dependencies without consent – fact or fiction?”. His fascinating discussion of the position of the Crown Dependences had a centre of gravity in the position of the  Channel Islands, but cautiously extends the themes to the rather different constitutional history of the Isle of Man.

Sir Michael takes a fairly high view of the importance of constitutional conventions, at times seeming to be part of a strong tradition that sees constitutional conventions as significantly different from mere constitutional understandings or political practices, and mentions Sir Ivor Jennings view that constitutional conventions could crystalise into law. The clear evidence of constitutional conventions hedging around the legislative authority of the UK over the Crown Dependencies, on that view, forms important evidence as to the de jure extent of the authority of the UK – it goes not only to the should question, but the can question of the exercise of Parliamentary authority, especially when that exercise is against the wishes of the authorities within the Crown Dependency. Naturally linked to this is the clear democratic deficit in a situation where the UK Parliament has a power to legislate for the Crown Dependencies when they, or rather their citizens, are unrepresented in that Parliament.

One does not need to accept quite the same view of the importance of constitutional conventions, and of underlying justifications for legal authority, to take from his discussion the power of constitutional silence in the constitutions of the Crown Dependences. If a Crown Dependency such as the Isle of Man had had a clear, formal, legally binding constitution drafted at any time before the 1980s, it would not have allowed anywhere near the same level of legal autonomy as is accepted today. To quote Lord Bach from 2002, “It is unhelpful to the relationship between Her Majesty’s Government and the Islands to speculate about the hypothetical and highly unlikely circumstances in which such intervention might take place”. Such speculation, if given concrete form in an instrument of government, might have acted as a brake on constitutional development in, at least, the Isle of Man.

Sir Michael’s approach to the Manx position in particular is tentative, giving full weight to the historical and so constitutional differences between the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. He touches briefly on the question of how the Island entered the dominions of the Crown, but I think the case for such entry having been by conquest at the end of the 14^th century is a strong one. Assuming – and in the 21^st century it is much more daring an assumption than it would have been in say the mid-20^th century – that the Imperial law concerning conquered territories applied to the Isle of Man, that puts the Island in a rather different constitutional position from the Channel Islands.  A sharp distinction between the two sets of legal systems, however, is much less justifiable if our focus is on the constitutional relationship to the UK now, and in particular to the democratic deficit in the relationship of the Crown Dependencies to a UK legislature.

Writing in (1988) California Management Review 124, Manuel Velasquez and Gerald Cavanagh focuses on the  1986, book-length,  “letter” by the Catholic Bishops of the US on moral issues, particularly social justice, posed by the economy. It outlines the drafting process for the letter, which began as an explicit balancing of earlier criticism of Marxism with a similar assessment of Capitalism, but evolved into a more pragmatic consideration of the US economy in practice.

One of the factors of the first draft that attracted criticism was the inclusion in the letter of specific policy proposals, with the National Review considering that their inclusion led to the bishops “inflicting severe wounds on the credibility of their Church [and] squandering their spiritual capital”; and conservatives criticising this part of the letter as being outside the competence of the bishops – being economic rather than theological. Velasquez and Cavanagh point out that part of the impact of the letter was a redefining of some issues as “moral issues – and therefore as issues on which the Church has a right to speak – topics (such as employment, world trade, farm policy, poverty and collaboration) that were being discussed in public forums largely as economic issues”.

The Bishops may have attempted this redefinition, but an obvious reaction is to ask whether they made it stick. My own work on the contribution of the Lord Bishop of Sodor and Man to debates in the Manx Tynwald found that the areas of special expertise that the Bishop was seen as contributing were on technical issues of the Anglican Church, and as a spiritual guide on “moral issues”. These were defined fairly narrowly, and other members of Tynwald were quite keen to keep the Bishop within bounds. Another query is whether these categorisations are mutually exclusive – can an issue not be both a moral one and an economic one? One where the voice of the Bishops may reflect a particular specialism, but one which needs to be read, even by adherents, alongside those of economists?