Kent constitutional law expert Sebastian Payne is a member of an international consortium that has been awarded a grant of over £170,000 to conduct the first comparative analysis of royal prerogative reform variation in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.

The five-year project, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, will explore how and why royal prerogative powers have been reformed within the Westminster System, a democratic parliamentary system of government modelled after that of the UK system.

Royal prerogatives have traditionally included the power to pardon, to negotiate and ratify treaties, to declare war and dispatch armed forces, to appoint judges and public officials, to determine the machinery of government, and to prorogue and dissolve Parliament. These powers have been criticized for a lack of democratic legitimacy, both in terms of secrecy that surrounds their exercise and the fact that they are authorities that are not sourced in parliamentary statute.

Sebastian will be among a team of international legal scholars and political scientists, led by Professor Philippe Lagasse of Carleton University in Canada, undertaking research around the world. The team’s focus will be on four categories of prerogative power: treaty powers; military deployments; judicial appointments; and dissolution of Parliament.

In addition to contributing original scholarship and knowledge on democratic reform and executive-legislative-judicial reform in Westminster states, the project’s research findings will offer invaluable insights into prerogative reform for parliamentarians, governments, and advocates across the Westminster democracies. The project will run until March 2024.

Sebastian is a Senior Lecturer at Kent Law School. He is also President of the United Kingdom Constitutional Law Association (UKCLA), an organisation which aims to encourage and promote the advancement of knowledge relating to UK constitutional law.