Page:Status of the Union Act 1934 and Royal Executive Functions and Seals Act 1934.djvu/6

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(4) The provisions of this section shall not affect the exercise of the powers under sections twelve, fourteen, twenty and forty-five of the South Africa Act, 1909, by the King or the Governor-General.

5. (1) The Governor-General-in-Council may by regulation provide for the making of wafer seals, representing the Great Seal, of such material as he may deem suitable and prescribe the size of the cast to be used for that purpose.

(2) The wafer seals made in pursuance of the provisions of sub-section (1) shall be kept by the Keeper of the Great Seal and may be used by him for sealing instruments which are required to pass the Great Seal, and instruments to which such wafer seals have been affixed shall be deemed to be sufficiently sealed in terms of this Act.

6. (1) Whenever for any reason the King’s signature to any instrument requiring the King’s sign manual cannot be obtained or whenever the delay involved in obtaining the King’s signature to any such instrument in the ordinary course would, in the opinion of the Governor-General-in-Council, either frustrate the object thereof, or unduly retard the despatch of public business, the Governor-General shall, subject to such instructions as may, from time to time, in that behalf, be given by the King on the advice of His Ministers of State for the Union, execute and sign such instrument on behalf of His Majesty and an instrument so executed and signed by the Governor-General and countersigned by one of the King’s Ministers of the Union shall be of the same force and effect as an instrument signed by the King.

(2) The Governor-General’s signature on such an instrument shall be confirmed by his Great Seal of the Union and a resolution of the Governor-General-in-Council shall be the necessary authority for affixing the same.

7. In the absence of any Act of the Parliament of the Union providing otherwise, the powers of the King to be exercised by His Majesty in Council or by Order-in-Council, under Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed prior to the commencement of the Statute of Westminster, 1931, and extending to the Union as part of the law of the Union shall, in respect of the Union, after the commencement of this Act, be exercised respectively by the Governor-General-in-Council or by him by Proclamation in the Gazette unless the Governor-General-in-Council decide that the exigencies of the case require that the procedure prescribed by such Acts be followed: Provided that the King-in-Council shall in the latter case act or purport to act in respect of the Union only at the request of the Prime Minister of the Union duly conveyed and it be expressly declared in the instrument containing the King’s pleasure that the Union has requested and consented to the King-in-Council so acting in respect of the Union.