[1] Interviewed on the BBC Panorama programme on 13 February 2005 Cretney argued that a civil wedding ceremony could not produce a valid marriage between the Prince of Wales and Camilla Parker-Bowles.
Cretney pointed out that although the 1836 Marriage Act introduced provision for civil weddings, by section 45 it did not apply to the royal family.
Rebutting Charles' claim (advanced by four legal experts who refused to give their names) that "the 1949 Act is not a continuation of the old legislation.
A Consolidation Act does not change the law except in the most minor ways and all it does is to bring together the versions previously scattered amongst the large number of other acts.He followed up with an article.
[8] He was supported ten days after the interview by David Pannick QC (as he then was), an administrative law expert who has overturned government interpretation of the law in court on many occasions, and a former attorney general, Sir Nicholas Lyell QC.