This book is a contribution to comparative constitutional law and deals with important changes in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the original members of the present Commonwealth of Nations. It is based on lectures delivered at the University of Cambridge. The first lecture discusses the development in recent years of the constitutional autonomy of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and its effect on the constitutions of those countries and on the concept of the 'crown'. The second lecture is concerned with methods to entrench, constitutionally, individual and democratic rights. The final lecture contrasts judicial attitudes to the interpretation of the constitutions of Canada and Australia. The conclusion is reached that although the EEC is not a federation, there is a structural similarity between the distribution of governmental power within the Community and its members, and the federal issues that arise in Canada, Australia and other federations.

"Although their importance may be increasingly apparent with the advent of democratization and constitutional change in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, laudable studies in comparative constitutional law are infrequent. A good one, such as Leslie Zines's Constitutional Change in the Commonwealth, is therefore worthy of study, not only for what it says but also for how it says it." The Review of Politics