THE legal action announced by the Guardian yesterday to challenge a
300-year-old law which bans non-Protestants from the throne is currently a
claim without a claimant. Unless the newspaper can find someone to bring a
case, there will be no hearing and no ruling.
The Act of Settlement restricts the succession to descendants of Princess
Sophia, the Electress of Hanover and the granddaughter of James I of
England, but excludes anyone who is a Roman Catholic or has married a
Catholic or who is not the natural child of married parents.
Many of these people seem to be minor German princelings who have fallen
on hard times. Hence the Guardian's faintly desperate small-ad among the
washing machines and cameras for sale in yesterday's Suddeutsche Zeitung.
It read: "British newspaper seeks German descendants of Queen Victoria.
Have you been cheated of the chance to become King or Queen because you
are Catholic, the child of unmarried parents or because you are adopted?"
If no such person can be found, the Guardian will search for a representative
body, such as the Roman Catholic Church, to bring an action on behalf of its
members. Other faiths might equally feel that their adherents had been the
victims of discrimination since the Act of Settlement requires the sovereign to
join in communion with the Church of England.
A claimant might argue that the Act of Settlement breaches Article Nine of the
Human Rights Convention, which protects freedom of religion, Article 12,
which guarantees the right to marry, and Article 14, which allows rights to be
enjoyed without discrimination.
The problem is that to bring an action under the Human Rights Act one has to
be a "victim". That seems to exclude public interest groups from acting on
behalf of their members. It could be slightly easier for a representative body to
begin an action for judicial review. In 1994 the law lords allowed the Equal
Opportunities Commission to bring a challenge on behalf of female workers
generally.
But a court might be reluctant to hear a case brought on behalf of people who
were too far removed from the throne to have any realistic prospect of
benefiting from any ruling.
The next problem would be to find a defendant. The Attorney General or the
Lord Chamberlain might be named in the court papers, but neither of them is
directly responsible for implementing the Act of Settlement.
The Guardian's editor, Alan Rusbridger, seems to have hoped that he would
be prosecuted under the Treason Felony Act 1848, which makes it an
offence punishable with life imprisonment to "compass, imagine, invent, devise
or intend to deprive or depose our most gracious Lady the Queen . . . from
the style, honour, or royal name of the imperial crown of the United
Kingdom".
A prosecution seems unlikely. Now Rusbridger is thought to be considering a
legal challenge against Lord Williams of Mostyn, the Attorney General, for
failing to promise that he will apply the 1848 Act in a way that is compatible
with the new Human Rights Act.
~*~
Covered in glory(Electronic Telegraph)
WHAT a day the Queen had yesterday. If she takes
the Guardian, her breakfast reading will not have been
congenial: the paper's editor - an ambulance-chaser in
search of an ambulance - is looking for a German
princeling to go to court against her. Later in the
morning, it cannot have been easy for our sporting
monarch to announce the hunting Bill to Parliament,
particularly when it was greeted with loud murmurs of
approval from anti-hunt MPs.
The day's end might have brought some happiness.
The largest covered square in Europe now bears her
name. They are well-matched: the Queen and the
Queen Elizabeth II Great Court have both added
something new, inspirational and stately to old
institutions. When the sparkling white portico in the
Great Court has aged enough to match the honey
colour of its fellow 170-year-old porticos, let us hope
that grumbles about the monarchy have disappeared.
To the three rights that Bagehot allowed the sovereign -
"the right to be consulted . . . to encourage . . . to
warn" - there might be added a fourth: the right to be
respected.
~*~
Queen opens £100m Great Court(Electronic Telegraph)
By Nigel Reynolds, Arts Correspondent
THE Queen opened the British Museum's spectacular £100 million Great
Court project - dedicated to her - last night and avoided any reference to the
controversy that part of it had been built with the wrong stones.
Instead, in front of 1,500 guests, she praised "the genius" of architect Lord
Foster and Spencer de Grey for creating "a landmark associated with the new
Millennium". The Queen Elizabeth II Great Court is the last great lottery
project to open in the Millennium year and one of the most dramatic.
At the heart of the museum, the architect Lord Foster has created the largest
new covered public square in Europe, the size of the Wembley football pitch.
The two-acre courtyard, in the centre of Sir Robert Smirke's museum, had
become cluttered with cabins and buildings and was never seen by the public.
Lord Foster has swept it all away creating a piazza with Sydney Smirke's
1857 Round Reading Room at the centre.
Over it a huge glass roof made of 3,312 triangles of glass and weighing 800
tons has been thrown. The reading room has been restored and beneath the
court, space has been dug out for new galleries, an education centre and
lecture rooms.
The main point of controversy is a new Ionic portico, the main gateway to the
courtyard, which was erected to replace an original demolished 125 years
ago. It was to have been built with 2,000 tons of Portland stone from Dorset
to blend in with its surroundings.
Instead, the museum was supplied with Anstrude Roche Clair from France.
Recriminations, allegations of cover-ups and demands for resignations have
reigned ever since the portico was completed. But last night it towered above
the guests, pristine white in stark contrast to the 150-year weathered grey
walls around it, triumphant over those who had called for it to be rebuilt.
Highly praised by architectural critics and likely to become a tourist attraction
in its own right, the courtyard opens to the public this morning. The museum
forecasts that visitor numbers to the Bloomsbury site will shoot up from 5.7
million to more than seven million a year.
~*~
Mozarts royal serenade(UK Times)
AN ANTHEM that Mozart composed on a visit to the British
Museum in 1765 was sung last night as the Queen arrived for the
official opening of the £100 million Great Court (Dalya Alberge
writes).
She was given a guided tour, including the outside of the historic
Reading Room which bears a carved dedication to her.
Lord Foster’s redesign has transformed the museum’s two-acre
inner courtyard into the largest covered public square in Europe.
Declaring it open, the Queen said: “In the life of the nation, the
British Museum is a remarkable phenomenon . . . it is an endless
source of learning, inspiration and pleasure for millions of people
who visit every year.”
Noting how the central space had been long forgotten until ten
years ago, she said that it will “become a landmark associated with
the millennium”.
Her speech was brought to a close with a son et lumière show
with amoeba-like shapes in psychedelic pink and purple projected
on to the walls.
Mozart was just nine when he wrote the motet, God is Our
Refuge, which was his only setting of English words and which he
gave to the museum. The manuscript is on display at the British
Library.