With the recent Golden Jubilee of Independence, numerous public figures have come forward urging the government to amend the constitution to remove references to His Majesty the King from our Oath of Allegiance. This is a mistake.
Pursuant to our Charter and principles, the Grenada Monarchist League condemns such suggestions utterly. The Oath of Allegiance is a central part of our constitution, system of government and history, and changing it to remove our head of state, the King, from it would be a serious mistake.
Commentators calling for the amendment of the Oath base it on the idea that the oath is being sworn to “the British monarch”, and that it as such means our elected representatives do not swear allegiance to Grenada. This is of course nonsense. Our representatives swear allegiance to the King of Grenada, not the King of the United Kingdom. It represents and entails an affirmation of loyalty by our elected representatives to the permanent and unchanging Crown of Grenada, aka the state itself, represented in the person of His Majesty the King as Sovereign. The oath is therefore sworn to Grenada.
Changing the oath would alter our constitutional arrangements by implicitly ending our representatives’ loyalty to the permanence of the Crown and all it represents; the state, our constitution and system of government. The proposal to change the oath to simply being an oath to “Grenada” changes its meaning. Currently, our representatives, through the person of the King, swear allegiance not just to our Sovereign, but to our constitution and system of government, which he embodies.
No longer a personal oath of loyalty to a man who represents and upholds our values and laws, our representatives would instead under the changed formulation swear allegiance to the abstract concept of the country, not to the nation, our institutions and laws. It would free them from commitment to our constitutional principles, and allow them to act however they please, with good conscience, so long as they can justify to themselves that they are still “loyal to Grenada”, rather than loyal to our constitution, laws and institutions.
The Grenada Monarchist League has already contacted the Office of the Prime Minister, and all 15 members of the House of Representatives, to urge against any changes to the oath which would remove references to His Majesty. We encourage all Grenadians to do the same, by contacting the Prime Minister’s Office and their Member of Parliament.
The League’s position on the oath has further been articulated and disseminated to the general public in NOW Grenada and The New Today. We pledge to do everything in our power to preserve the Oath of Allegiance, in order to uphold the Grenadian Constitution, our history, and the rule of law.
Grenada Monarchist League 