The Barclay Cases: Beyond Kilbrandon

The Supreme Court in Barclay (No 2) held that UK courts did not have jurisdiction to challenge the granting of Royal Assent to the Sark Reform Law in the circumstances of that particular case. Inevitably, the judgment reconsidered the constitutional relationship between the UK and the Crown Dependencies. By leaving open an appropriate challenge to a Projet de Loi in a UK court, it allows a potential future challenge to the refusal of Royal Assent. Alluding to recent democratic developments in the Dependencies, the judgment endorses or even possibly crystallises conventions identified in the 1973 Kilbrandon Report, such as the need for prior consultation before an international agreement is applied to the Dependencies. Significantly, it held that the unorthodox statement in Barclay (No 1), that the UK could intervene in the affairs of the Crown Dependencies on the broad ground of “public interest”, had no authority because of the lack of representation of Guernsey in that case.