The implications of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" settlement case in terms of musician royalties

Linda sold worldwide copyright to Gallo Records of South Africa for 10 shillings — less than $1.70.

Someone is seriously going to hell for that.

Maybe. But most of the countires that were in the British Empire are still members of the Commonwealth (including Jamaica and South Africa), so its not true to say that they reject completely any political organization with its legacy in Colonialism.

the former colonies probably have their own view of this argument.

Also the Westminister Statute of 1931 gives Dominion Parlaiments equal and independent status to Westminister allowing them to reject any legislation passed at Westminister so Bowman's point doesn't hold, that's law not a former colonies point of view.

There's every possibility that this could apply.

Many countries still have the House of Commons as their ultimate court of appeal, Jamaican and West Indies cases end up there, including not too long ago one about the death penalty which is against the law in the UK, presenting unique difficulties.
So I wonder whether the Marley case is in the UK because it has reached the Law Lords referred from a Jamaican court or was it originally taken in the UK under British law? because if it's the latter then there is certainly superior legislation to the 1911 act on UK Statue books from the 60's on.

"also under english law the argument is that the independence of post-colonial nations is granted by act of (UK) parliament, and is therefore subject to revocation in the same way as any other act of parliament." - the argument is that under the principle of parliamentary sovereignty parliament cannot bind itself. the interesting question then is what if the UK parliament decides to repeal the statute granting power to the dominion parliaments?

an academic argument possibly, but interesting nonetheless.

yep

"Anyone completely clear on the British Consitution?"

nope

"seeing as it's unwritten it's a bitch."

like it that way - nice and flexible :-)

Whether or not UK Parliamentary sovereignty could be re-estrablished over Canada I'm not sure, it's very possible it might, in law, Australia too. India would be far far harder, as would a great many former Colonies who legally used the act to re-engineer their legal status/relationship to Britain. Also any repeal would be just that, it would only have effect in the current time on current colonies and couldn't act retrospectively to those countries that have re-engineered their status. For instance:

The Westminister Statute was incredibly important for Ireland because it allowed the Irish Parlaiment to lift the Government of Ireland act 1920 legally and therefore allowed the state to redefine itself in law which could not challenged by Britain. Because the Government of Ireland act was was lifted the Free State was able to become Éire under the 1937 Constition and forever lift the legal authority of Westminister. It happened that the DeValera took advantage of the crisis in the Monarchy at the time too. In the irish case, should the sovereignty of ireland be revoked, the parliament that would lose it's sovereignty does not exist under British Law and the law cannot act retrospectively. In effect Ireland become fully independent only after the 1937 constitution or even later, after withdrawing from the Commonwealth as an associated country (i think it was callled) in 1948 and passing the Republic of Ireland act. There's still a muddle though. We're only The "Republic of Ireland" under the Republic of Ireland act 1949, constitionally we're Éire. So the Westminister Act was vitally important to ex-colonies. I have no doubt that there are dominion status states that could be legally reclaimed by UK, but the're probaby very very few. And there are a thousand an one legal arguments against the legality of that in UK law i'm sure, never mind intenational treaty law.

This is all academic with regard to the original post though, absolutely!

however, the argument is that in english law (the uk) parliament is sovereign. it may delegate power to other bodies, but as it retains sovereignty theoretically it can revoke that power at will. i know the arguments that certain acts of parliament can be "entrenched", but i don't see how that can accord with a pure theory of parliamentary sovereignty.

obviously in the real world there are all sorts of checks and balances on parliamentary power.

But yeah, Ned, Courts in other ex-british colonies could do something similar to what happened in South Africa but South African judgements aren't precedent or don't have effect outside South African jurisdiction.

the human rights act 1998 is still in effect. it obliges public bodies to act in accordance with the european convention of human rights (i.e. it's not effective against private individuals). parliament is supposed to issue a statement with the passing of each act stating whether or not it is compliant with the echr/hra. however, if it isn't then that doesn't mean the act is invalid. furthermore, if a court finds an act incompatible with human rights they can make a declaration of incompatibility, but the act still stands.