The Secretary, Department of Defence, asks for advice on a question raised by the Official Secretary to the Governor-General as to whether there is any objection to His Excellency's name stamp being used on commissions, in lieu of the actual signature of His Excellency.

I am not prepared to say that His Excellency's name stamp affixed by himself on commissions would not be a good signature; but I do not think that it would be in accordance with constitutional precedent.

In signing a commission, the Governor-General is exercising the executive power of the Commonwealth, which by the Constitution is vested in the King and exercisable by the Governor-General, as the King's representative.

His Excellency's signature, therefore, is the equivalent in the Commonwealth of the King's sign manual.

Great importance has always been attached, by the King's advisers, to the due affixing of the sign manual. On certain occasions, when the sovereign was unable to write, a stamp has been allowed to be affixed under special conditions; but in 1862, when there was a vast accumulation of army commissions awaiting Queen Victoria's signature, it was thought necessary to pass an Act to dispense with the necessity of the sign manual in such cases (25 & 26 Vic. c.4; and see Anson, Law and Custom of the Constitution, 3rd edn, Vol.11, Part I, pp. 58, 59).

The important nature of a commission under the hand of the Governor-General, and the desirability of enabling its authenticity to be clearly proved, are in my opinion strong grounds for retaining the usual practice of personal signature.

[Vol. 15, p. 91].