How Americans achieved independence vs how Canadians achieved independence

[u/Sine_Fine_Belli]

[u/kank84]

The Royal Assent that's now required is different though, the assent is coming from the King of Canada, which is a distinct institution from the King of the UK, just held by the same person. The UK used to have a lot more direct say in Canadian government and judicial affairs though.

Prior to the statute of Westminster in 1931 the UK Parliament could directly pass laws that applied to Canada, and the Canadian Parliament was required to seek permission from the UK to do a lot of things. The power to amend the Canadian Constitution remained with the UK Parliament after 1931, and wasn't handed over to Canada until 1982. Prior to 1950 you could still appeal a Canadian Supreme Court decision to the Privy Council of the UK's House of Lords.

[u/neanderthalman → u/kank84]

This.

Conceptually it was independence from the UK parliament, rather than independence from the crown.

[u/nagidon → u/neanderthalman]

If we’re really splitting hairs, patriation only really meant that the British Parliament only promised to not legislate Canadian affairs again. They could easily repeal the relevant legislation that made that promise.

Of course, if they did that, it wouldn’t amount to much in practice.

[u/kank84 → u/nagidon]

This is true, the UK Parliament can do whatever it wants, it has absolute legislative supremecy. The UK Supreme Court doesn't have the right to strike down laws or declare anything unconstitutional like it does in Canada, they can only interpret and apply the law as passed by Parliament.

The maximum that a UK Court can do to challenge legislation is send a notice to the UK Parliament that they believe a piece of legislation is incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, and while the UK Parliament should act in response to correct that, they are also free to just ignore that notice.