HM Procureur argued that these principles have no application to Guernsey, not least because the States of Deliberation of Guernsey is not a body with powers laid down by legislation, but a legislature the powers of which have been developed by Guernsey common and customary law and conventions created by continuous dealings between Guernsey and the United Kingdom government (and its predecessors before the Union) over many centuries. He also argued that even if these principles could in theory apply to Guernsey, the approval of local legislation by the Queen in Council means that any element of extra-territorial operation which might otherwise offend against these principles has received the approval of the United Kingdom, and accordingly no question of ultra vires can arise.

The constitutional relationship between Guernsey on the one hand, and the Crown and the United Kingdom parliament and government on the other, is a complex one, governed to a substantial extent in practice by well- established conventions which in practice create limitations to the extent to which the States of Guernsey and the United Kingdom Parliament respectively legislate for the affairs of Guernsey. Clearly this constitutional relationship is of a different kind from the primarily statutory relationship between the United Kingdom and its past and present colonies, or between the Federal Parliament of Australia and those of the constituent Australian States. In view of the conclusions we have reached on the remaining questions, it is not necessary for us to answer HM Procureur's first question. We simply assume that the principles concerning extra-territorial legislation enacted by a dependent or subordinate territory do apply to Guernsey, while emphasising that we have reached no conclusion on this first question and while recognising that there is much to be said in support of HM Procureur's arguments on this question.