The approach of the centenary of the disestablishment of the Church of England in Wales offers a good opportunity to reflect on legal aspects of the life of the Church in Wales since 1920. Religious equality had been the principal stimulus for the Welsh Church Act 1914. This statute, together with the release of the Welsh dioceses by the Archbishop of Canterbury to form a separate Anglican province, necessitated the formulation of a constitution for the Church. Innovation was avoided, and continuity protected. ‘Vestiges of establishment’ continued, in burial and marriage, as the result of political expediency. The original structure of the Constitution continues to this day – a complex of various instruments. Change has been piecemeal. The Church still has no modernised body of canon law and its soft law has increased dramatically. However, understandings about the purposes of the Constitution have changed, and the demand for constitutional change has quickened recently, particularly since the Harries Review of the Church in Wales in 2012.
