There is no automatic need for a conference before major changes to Bermuda's Constitution, Foreign and Commonwealth deputy legal advisor Ian Hendry said yesterday.

And he said the British government would face up to a court challenge to the way it had handled constitutional change if it materialised.

He acknowledged the claim made in yesterday's Royal Gazette by lawyer Warren Cabral that the British Foreign Secretary in 1966 had given a written undertaking that a conference would be held for significant changes in the Constitution, but said he had no knowledge of it being reiterated in 1979 or 1989.

Mr. Cabral said Britain could be challenged in the courts in London for bypassing due process if it did not have a constitutional conference.

But Mr. Hendry said yesterday: "There certainly was a statement in the report of the 1966 conference (that) if there were to be, in the view of the Secretary of State, a major change, that a representative conference would be held.

"That was in 1966. I've seen it reported that that was repeated in 1979, but I have no information about the repetition of that in 1979 and I was at the Warwick Camp conference. I don't remember it.

"There is no automatic requirement for a constitutional conference to be called for changes to the Constitution of Bermuda. What is meant by conference? "There were representatives of everyone I can think of who met us this week.

If the view is taken that some part of this process ought to be challenged in the courts of the UK, that's everyone's right to try to do that.

"We live in an age when people can seek to challenge Government decisions and have judicial reviews, and if that happens, we'll see and take it as it comes.''