A raft of legal stories about the royal family has fuelled debate about the constitutional position of the monarchy.

Jeremy Fleming listens to reaction from academia and the profession

The announcement last month that the coroner to the royal household, solicitor Michael Burgess, will begin conducting an inquiry into the death nearly seven years ago in Paris of Diana, Princess of Wales, was met with the usual flurry of interest which accompanies stories with a Royal connection.

But while Buckingham Palace probably tires of the incessant interest the ongoing saga of Diana attracts, the inquiry seems a walk in St James's Park after some of the other legal issues surrounding the Royals last year.

First, there was the farrago over the trial of Diana's former butler, Paul Burrell.

The Crown pulled the plug on the prosecution of Mr Burrell at the 11th hour when last-minute evidence from the Queen cast doubt on the prosecution case.

It was widely suspected that this owed something to the Queen wanting to protect her son and grandchildren from the witness box.

Later in the year, came the much-vaunted Daily Mirror scoop, when undercover reporter Ryan Parry sneaked himself on to the Queen's payroll as a servant and then spilled the beans about some intimate family behaviour in his newspaper.

These two stories raised questions about the role of the Queen in relation to the courts, and whether the royal family should be better protected by secrecy laws.

In addition, the current review of various aspects of the constitution - such as the attempt to reform the House of Lords and abolish the office of the Lord Chancellor - all raise the question whether the constitutional position of the monarch ought also to be reviewed.

Last year, the Fabian Society, a left-leaning think-tank, published a booklet - The Future of the Monarchy - which made several recommen-dations for reform.

These included proposals to regulate the dissolution of Parliament by statute, and impose maximum periods between its dissolution and summoning - both areas currently falling within the Royal discretion.

It suggested that the appointment of a prime minister should be a matter for Parliament and that the monarch should recognise as prime minister whoever can command a majority in Parliament.

Currently - although the monarch is hardly likely to do otherwise - the appointment of the PM remains at the sovereign's discretion.

The Fabian Society recommended that immunities from civil claims and the ban on criminal prosecution for the monarch should remain in place, as these are in line with standard procedures in other democracies.

It also recommended that the sovereign should be competent to give evidence in court, but that no witness should be allowed to compel him or her to do so, and that all prosecutions should be brought not by the Crown but in the name of the director of public prosecutions.

Dawn Oliver, professor of constitutional law at University College London, was one of the ten-member commission appointed by the Fabian Society to write the recommendations.

She acknowledges: 'It will be politically difficult to achieve any kind of reforms to the constitution relating to the monarchy.

There is a culture between the political parties that reforms in this area should be consensual and non-partisan.

'But the parties might be reluctant to agree reforms to the succession and the Catholic bar for fear of stirring up a whole lot of other controversies about the monarchy and the prerogative powers.'

Vernon Bogdanor, professor of government at Oxford University, says: 'The Burrell case has seen a profusion of malicious gossip.

Yet the monarchy works perfectly well.

`Indeed, the monarchy is one of the few institutions which have not given rise to any constitutional problems.'

He says that next to issues of devolution, the position of Britain in Europe, the reform of the House of Lords and the announcement of a new judicial appointments commission, the monarchy has not caused any substantial constitutional issues since the abdication crisis, caused when King Edward VIII married US divorcee Wallis Simpson in 1936.

'Those who pursue reform of the monarchy are simply obsessive,' he adds.

Indeed, if there are to be changes, he suggests that they should start with protection for the privacy of the Royals.

'I don't think anyone's proposing to alter the position of the Royal family.

The Burrell case does, however, raise the question of whether we need statutory protection of privacy in this country.

It seems to me quite wrong that the private lives of members of the royal family can be discussed with such abandon.'

Professor Oliver says that constitutional problems could easily arise over the Queen's personal powers, for instance as to who to invite to form a government after an election.

She says: 'If there were a hung Parliament, the largest party would expect that its leader should be invited to form a government.

But if the second and third largest parties were willing to co-operate and could command a majority, the Queen might take the view that the overriding principle is that the person who can command a majority should be asked to form an administration.

In such a cas,e the largest party would no doubt feel aggrieved and the Queen would be exposed to allegations of party bias.'

Professor Oliver says this would be damaging to the reputation of the monarchy as an institution.

This is why the commission considered that and it would be preferable for the House of Commons itself to elect a Prime Minister and for the monarch to appoint that person.

One constitutional expert at a City law firm - who preferred not to be named - says that while the issue of reform of the constitution relating to the Royal family might not be of particular relevance to solicitors practising law, the issue of Crown prerogative might be.

He explains: 'There could be issues arising from Crown immunity from statute, where a legal action is brought against private enterprise by the state, because the Crown remains unbound by statute unless the legislation expressly binds it.'

The past 12 months have seen a flurry of headlines for solicitors acting in different capacities for the Royals.

Leading the pack is Mr Burgess, the solicitor-coroner to the Queen's household and formerly a partner with Weybridge-based McNamara Ryan.

Buckingham Palace turned to City firm Herbert Smith rather than Farrer & Co following the Ryan affair to obtain an injunction against the Daily Mirror in September last year, to stop the paper printing material obtained by an undercover reporter.

The fact that Farrer & Co, the Queen's usual law firm, was not used in a case involving the media - one of its specialities - surprised commentators.

A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman said at the time it was not the first time Herbert Smith had been used: 'They [Herbert Smith] cover different areas of law for us.' Farrers has acted for the Royals since the 18th century.

There was also a bad spell for Fiona Shackleton, Prince Charles's lawyer and a partner at Payne Hicks Beech - better known as the 'steel magnolia' - when a newspaper suggested she might be made a scapegoat for the sensational collapse of the Paul Burrell trial.

The storm blew over ultimately without any further fuss, and she remains a key solicitor to the Royals.

But for some lawyers, the finer points of the constitution do not impact on practice.

Franklin Sinclair, senior partner of Tuckers and past chairman of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association, says he cannot see what difference it would make if the prosecution of criminal cases was changed from an action by the monarch to one by the director of public prosecutions:

He explains: 'I don't think it would have any effect beyond the purely symbolic.

It sounds like a general piece of modernisation.'