The Royal Baby – And the Law

the royal baby and the law

the royal baby and the lawIt’s a boy!  Or Girl?  Does it matter any longer what the royal baby is in terms of its sex?

Whether girl, or boy, he or she will be third in line to the throne.  The change in British law ends of the age-old rule that male heirs only succeed to the throne, regardless of who was first born.  No longer under the new law, passed since Prince William and the Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, were married.

Both prince Charles and Prince William are  heir apparent to the throne. Then it’s the baby.  Not prince Harry.

But – as always – there are some hypothetical issues as the Guardian discloses in this piece:

Robert Hazell, director of the constitution unit at University College London, said: “The fear is that if all the realms do not make the change then, at some future point the line of succession could divide.”

It happened in the Victorian era. “We borrowed the Hanoverian dynasty and they were, for a century, kings of Britain and electors of Hanover. But when the line of succession in Britain came down to Queen Victoria, that joint monarchy was broken because Hanover still observed Salic law and could not have a female monarch. I can’t tell you who the elector of Hanover was, but it wasn’t Queen Victoria,” said Hazell.

“The UK government and Buckingham Palace want any change in the rule of succession to be introduced throughout the realms. If there were different rules, that could lead in time to different members of the royal family succeeding in different countries.”

In the event, history is extremely unlikely to repeat itself. But the speed with which the succession bill was put into place means it could take up to another year for all the realms to complete the complicated process required, he estimates.

Australia and Canada have faced difficulties because both are federations; Australia requires the consent of each of its six states, and Canada of its 10 provinces.
 

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