I’ve looked at the Constitution in more detail previously, while some of the available options for introducing devolution or federalism within Wales were touched on in A Federal Wales II.
In this part, I’m going to look in a bit more detail at how powers can decentralised, the kind of powers that are usually decentralised (using international examples) and intergovernmental relations.
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There are a lot more examples than the ones above but they give a decent enough sample.
The immediate thing that stands out is that apart from Switzerland, most federal sub-divisions are the same size or larger than Wales – something Unionists will no doubt point to and argue that Wales is big enough for devolution/self-government but too small to be independent. That’s a mean average though. In terms of range, the size of federal sub-divisions can vary massively.
It’s perfectly viable to have federal sub-units – with full law-making powers – that have populations in the hundreds of thousands of people.
Six Canadian provinces and territories, six American states, two German Länder, three autonomous communities in Spain and twenty-four Swiss cantons have a population of one million or less. So a form of devolution or federalism within Wales is viable, it’s just whether it’s desirable (A Federal Wales I).
I’ll be covering the size of any devolved/state legislatures in A Federal Wales IV, but they’re often larger than the current Senedd – if not dramatically so.
Dispute resolution mechanisms are generally similar – often involving either a Supreme Court or a dedicated Constitutional Court. As covered previously in my look at the justice system, I suggested a Supreme Court of Wales acts as a constitutional court (much like the UK and US supreme courts).
The other major similarity is that nearly all nation-states with a form of federalism or devolution have some sort of “supermacy clause” or equivalent. The federal government and legislature also usually retain control over determining the number and boundaries of the states/regions – though often can’t make changes without consent.
The major difference is in the mechanism by which a devolution settlement or federalism is enacted:
- The most common mechanism is the use of written constitutional clauses setting out what the federal subunits/states can do.
- Others have constitutional clauses setting out what policy areas are exclusive to the national legislature and government (like the reserved powers model).
- In nation-states with an unwritten or partially written constitution – like the UK and Canada – it’s often enacted via laws made by the national legislature (such as the Government of Wales Act 2006).
- Spain’s use of statutes of autonomy – developed by the autonomous communities themselves – as a “second tier” level of constitutional law is fairly unique.
Another area of difference – though not that important – is the descriptive terms of the federal sub-divisions.
They’re very rarely described as “countries” or “nations” and that only happens in unions that have been formed through the amalgamation of historic nation-states – such as the UK and Spain.
“State” seems to be the most common descriptive term and distinguishes it from a nation-state or country. “Province” does something similar, as does “canton”. “Region” has a bit of a chequered history in Wales and would be best avoided. I don’t think we would be able to use “canton” because there’s no Welsh translation.
So for Wales, if we were to have devolved or federal states perhaps the best title is “province” (Welsh: “talaith”). It’s more respectful than being called a region and less confusing than calling them states.
