Attorney General v Prince Ernest Augustus of Hanover
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | THE MASTER OF THE ROLLS,LORD JUSTICE BIRKETT,LORD JUSTICE ROMER |
| Judgment Date | 16 November 1955 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1955] EWCA Civ J1116-2 |
| Date | 16 November 1955 |
| Court | Court of Appeal |
[1955] EWCA Civ J1116-2
The Master of the Rolls (Sir Raymond Ever shed),
Lord Justice Birkett and
Lord Justice Romer
In The Supreme Court of Judicature
Court of Appeal
Mr. KENNETH DIPLOCK. Q.C. Mr. R.O. WILBERFORCE, Q.C. and Mr. JOHN KNOX (instructed by Messrs, Farrer & Co.) appeared on behalf of the Plaintiff.
HER MAJESTY'S ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir Reginald Manningham-Bullor, Q.C.) and Mr. B.J.H. CLAUSON (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared on behalf of the Defendant.
The Statute 4 Anne chapter 4, which this appeal requires us to construe, is short and. should be set out In extenso. Its title is "An Act for the Naturalization of the most Excellent Princess Sophia, Electress and Duchess Dowarer of Hanover, and the Issue of her Body"; and its terns are as follows:
"WHEREAS the Imperial Crown and Dignity of the Realms of England, France, and Ireland, and. the Dominions thereto belonging, after the Dora so and Death of your Majesty, our cost gracious Sovereign, without Issue of your 3ody, is United by Act of Parliament, to the most Excellent Princess Sophia, Electress and Duchess Dowager of Hanover, Granddaughter of the late Kin-James the First, and the Heirs of her Body, being: protestants: And whereas your Majesty, by your Royal Care and Concern for the Happiness of these Kingdoms, reigns in the Hearts and Affections of all your People, to their great Comfort and Satisfaction, and will be a glorious Example to your Royal Successors in future Ages.: And to the 2nd the said Princess Sophia, Electress and Duchess Dowager of Hanover, and the Issue of her Body, and all Persons lineally descending from her, may be encouraged to become acquainted with the Laws and Constitutions of this Realm, it is just and highly reasonable, that they, in your Majesty's Life Time (whom God Ion – preserve) should be naturalized, and be deemed, t-alien, and esteemed natural born Subjects of England: We your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal Subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in Parliament assembled, do most humbly beseech your Majesty that it may be enacted; and therefore be it enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty by and Kith the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and lay the Authority of the same, That the said Princess Sophia, Electress and Puchoss Dowager of Hanover, and the Issue of her Body, and all Persons lineally descending from her, born or hereafter to be born, be and shall be, to all Intents and Purposes whatsoever, doomed, taken, and esteemed natural subject ofthis Kingdom, as if the said Princess, and the Issue of her Body, and all Persons lineally descending from her, born or hereafter to be born, had been born within this Realm of England; any Law, Statute, Matter, or Thing whatsoever to the contrary not with standing.
"II. Provided always, and be it further enacted and declared by the Authority aforesaid, That every Person and Persons, who shall be naturalized by virtue of this Act of Parliament, and shall become a Papist, or profess the Popish Religion, shall not enjoy any Benefit or Advantage of a natural born Subject of England; but every such Person shall be adjudged and taken as an Alien, born out of the Allegiance of the Queen of England, to all Intents and Purposes whatsoever; any Thing herein contained to the contrary notwithstanding."
The Act was (among others) repealed by the British Nationality Act, 1948; but the repeal was subject to the provision that every person who was a British subject immediately, before the repealing Act came into operation should become a British Citizen thereunder.
The Plaintiff in the action claims that he is by virtue of the Statute of Anne and the Act of 1948 a British citizen. It is not in doubt that he is in fact a lineal descendant of the Electress Sophia. It is also admitted on the part of the Attorney-General that if he is otherwise entitled to succeed, he is not disqualified by the terms of the proviso to the Statute of Anne. He was born in the year 1914 and the question in the action is whether, upon its true interpretation, the Act of 1705 is such as to apply to a person coming into existence more than 200 years after the date of its passing.
By the standards of the great majority of the Acts of Parliament which now fall to be considered by the Courts, the Act 4 Anne chapter 4 is old and, by the same standards, its form and language arc archaic. There are now, as we were informed, some 400 living persons who claim lineal descent from the Electress Sophia of Hanover named in the Act, In the two and ahalf centuries which separate the year 1955 from the year 1705 the structure of that which we call Western civilisation has suffered many profound changes. The nations of 1955, the populations which they embrace and the obligations which they demand from their inhabitants, were no doubt in many respects undreamt of A in the philosophy of 1705. Moreover, the nation with which the domains of the Electors of Hanover were absorbed has twice in the present century been at war with the United Kingdom, so that the Plaintiff, like his father before him, has found himself arrayed in arms against the Sovereign to whom he has since his birth (if his claim is well founded) owed the allegiance of a British subject.
The Attorney-General has, however, not relied upon any defence to the Plaintiff's claim based on the facts to which I have last referred, or upon the circumstance that at the date of the coming into operation of the Act of 1948 he was, as an enemy, disabled from having any access to the Queen's Courts for the purpose of asserting that he was then a British subject. The Attorney-General also expressly disclaimed before us any argument to the effect that the Statute of Anneought now, having regard to its antiquity and archaic form, to be so construed as to "whittle down" or minimise the effect which would otherwise flow from its terms.
The question, then, for our decision is one of the meaning which, according to the relevant rules for the interpretation of Statutes, should now be given (and which would have been given in the year 1705) to the language which I have already recited. To the problem so simply posed the answer would prima facie appear undoubtedly to be in favour of the Plaintiff; for the enacting language of the Statute - "all persons lineally descending from (the Princess Sophia) born or hereafter to be born" ex facie covers clearly the case of a person admittedly so descended and not otherwise disqualified.
But it is the contention of the Attorney-General that the question as I have posed (and answered) it is an over-simplification of the problem; that the true scope and intention of Parliament, discerned from a consideration of certain earlier Statutes in pari materia with the Statute 4 Anne chapter 4 and also (more especially) of the preamble of the Statute of Anne itself, require that the apparently wide signification of the general language used in the enactment should be substantially restricted; and that the right construction of the material words which I have just quoted from the Act is such as to limit the class of descendants, conformably with the Parliamentary intention expressed in the reamble, to those Descendants born in the lifetime of Queen Anne. The Attorney-General has additionally around that general words in an enactment will be restricted in order to avoid what would otherwise be an' absurd or highly inconvenient result: and the result which would, in the present case, make the Statute of Anne comprehend an ever-increasing class of persons, from one generation to another, in course of time almost impossible of identification, would (it is contended) be not only highly inconvenient and absurd but would exceed any object which the Act could sensibly have been designed to achieve.
We were referred tonumerous authorities illustrative of the principle to be applied in construing Statutes. It has, I think, to be conceded that the numerous judicial pronouncements in the books upon the significance of a preamble in interpreting the enacting provisions of a Statute disclose at least some variation in emphasis.
I take by way of example two citations from the case in the House of Lords of ( Powell v. Kempton Park Racecourse Co. 1899 Appeal Cases, page 143) where the question (decided affirmatively by a majority of the House) was whether the apparently general words of the Setting Act 1853 should be limited, in light particularly of the Parliamentary intention as expressed in the preamble, so as to exclude the Act from applying to betting with bookmakers upon the Kempton Park Racecourse. Lord James of of the Hereford, who was of the majority, said at page 193 reportthat he fully acceptor the dictum of Lord Tenterden in the case of Halton v. Cove which included the following sentence: "Yet on a sound construction of every Act of Parliament I take it the words in thee-. acting part must be confined to that which is the plain object an", general intention of the Legislature in passing the Act, and that the preamble affords a good clue to discover what that object was."
It will "be noticed that the language of Lord Tenterden foes not (at any rate in terns) appear to require the presence of any antiquity in the enacting part of the Statute before its ordinary meaning can in such a case be United. On the other hand, Lord Davey, who dissented from the majority opinion, seems plainly to indicate that words in the enacting part which are themselves clear cannot be restricted go as to accord -with the apparent promise of the preamble. He said at page 185 of the report: "Undoubtedly' - I...
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