Print
Send to Friend
Bookmark
The Royal Prerogative is a body of customary authority, privilege, and immunity, recognized in common law and, sometimes, in civil law jurisdictions possessing a monarchy as belonging to the Sovereign alone.[1] It is the means by which some of the executive powers of government, possessed by and vested in a monarch with regard to the process of governance of their state, are carried out. Individual prerogatives can be abolished by Parliament, although in the United Kingdom special procedure applies. Though some republican heads of state possess similar powers, they are not coterminous, containing a number of fundamental differences, and may be either more or less extensive.[ ] See reserve powers. While prerogative powers were originally exercised by the monarch acting alone, and do not require parliamentary consent, they are now always exercised on the advice of the Prime Minister or the Cabinet, who is then accountable for the decision to Parliament. There may be situations in which the monarch could choose to exercise the Royal Prerogative without the advice of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet. Such situations are rare, and generally only occur in emergencies or where existing precedent does not adequately apply to the circumstances in question. In many liberal-democratic constitutional monarchies, such actions could precipitate a constitutional crisis.[ ] Not all constitutional monarchs have royal prerogative that can be exercised independently however. For example, the King of Sweden and the Emperor of Japan have specific government duties that cannot be exercised with any degree of individual discretion, no matter what the circumstance.[ ]
Definition
In the Kingdom of England (up to 1707), the Kingdom of Great Britain (1707–1800) and the United Kingdom (since 1801), the Royal Prerogative historically was one of the central features of the realm's governance. Constitutional theorist AV Dicey gives the standard definition of what prerogative powers are:
... the remaining portion of the Crown's original authority, and it is therefore ... the name for the residue of discretionary power left at any moment in the hands of the Crown, whether such power be in fact exercised by the King himself or by his Ministers.[2]
Ministerial exercise of the monarch's prerogatives
Today, some prerogative powers are directly exercised by ministers without the approval of Parliament, including, in the United Kingdom, the powers to regulate the civil service, issue passports and grant honours.[3] Some prerogative powers are exercised nominally by the monarch, but on the advice of the Prime Minister, with whom the monarch meets on a weekly basis, and on the advice of Cabinet of the United Kingdom. Some key areas of the British system of government are still carried out by means of the Royal Prerogative, but its usage has been diminishing as functions are progressively made statutory. Contrary to widespread belief, the Royal Prerogative is not constitutionally unlimited. While the sovereign has the right to publish new law, it is a form of reserve power not constitutionally used. (Her Majesty, as Head of State of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth Realms, has the right to use the Royal Prerogative over any nation where she is Head of State.) In the Case of Proclamations (1611) during the reign of King James I/VI, English common law courts judges emphatically asserted that they possessed the right to determine the limits of the Royal Prerogative. Since the Glorious Revolution (1688), which brought co-monarchs Queen Mary II and King William III to power, this judicial interpretation has not been challenged by the Crown.
The Royal Prerogative in Canada
In Canada, the power to issue passports remains under the Royal Prerogative. The government has used the Royal Prerogative to deny passports to a citizen whom the US government had held, and released, from the American prison in the US Naval base at Guantanamo Bay. Abdurahman Khadr was denied a passport by the Canadian government.
The Royal Prerogative in the British Indian Ocean Territory
In the case of Chagos Archipelago islands, in 2000, the High Court of Justice of England and Wales ruled that a local Ordinance made by the Commissioner of the British Indian Ocean Territory exiling the islanders was unlawful, a decision which was accepted by the British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook. However that Ordinance was legislation passed under authority given by the royal prerogative, not an exercise of the prerogative itself, and was overturned as being beyond the powers given. After this decision, the British Government issued an Order in Council, a primary exercise of the royal prerogative, to achieve the same objective. This Order was also ruled unlawful by the High Court, a ruling upheld in the Court of Appeal. However on Wednesday, 22 October 2008, the Government won its appeal in the House of Lords against the previous rulings. The House decided by a three-to-two majority that the Order in Council was a lawful exercise of authority [4][5]. In their speeches, the Law Lords admitted the government of the day was morally wrong to force out some 2,000 residents of the Chagos Islands, a British colony, to make way for a US air base in the 1960s. Nevertheless, the majority could not find legal fault in the Order.
The Royal Prerogative in the United Kingdom
The Royal Prerogative in Other Commonwealth Realms
In the other Commonwealth Realms, the Royal Prerogative varies significantly from the prerogative in the United Kingdom, and is exercised by the Monarch's representative, the Governor-General. The Constitution of a Commonwealth Realm may sharply limit the prerogative in ways that do not apply in the United Kingdom and many governmental acts which would be done under the prerogative in the United Kingdom are given effect by the Constitution or Acts of Parliament in a Commonwealth realm.
The Royal Prerogative in dependencies
Generally, the crown retains all the power of the state in a crown colony (even if in practice it is not directly exercised). Thus the royal prerogative is in theory an unlimited, arbitary authority[6]. In British overseas territories however, each inhabited territory has a constitution by which the territory is governed locally. The absoluteness of the royal prerogative in the colonies was however defeated in the case of Campbell v. Hall, in 1774. Campbell v. Hall decided that once a colony gained a representative assembly (or once the governor has been instructed to call one) then the royal authority is limited to the familiar prerogatives; without the assembly's consent the Crown could not raise taxation nor change the law. Several of the colonies of the British West Indies thus became "settled colonies", and reverted to "crown colony" status only by Act of Parliament in the nineteenth century[7].
See also
- Royal Prerogative of the Spanish monarchy
- Executive privilege
- Letters patent
- Order-in-Council
- Queen-in-Parliament
- Reserve power
- Royal assent
- Royal charter
- Royal Order
- Statutory Instrument
References
- ^ In Commonwealth realms, the wording "the Crown" is usually used in this context instead of "King or Queen"
- ^ House of Commons - Public Administration - Fourth Report
- ^ UK Parliament - PASC 19
- ^ Britain wins appeal over Chagos islanders' return home
- ^ Chagos islanders cannot return home
- ^ Campbell v. Hall, 1774
- ^ e.g. The St. Vincent and Grenada Constitution Act 1876 (39 & 40 Vict. c. 47)
Additional reading
- Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution
- Joseph Chitty, The Prerogatives of the Crown (monograph from 1820)
- Stanley de Smith and Rodney Brazier, Constitutional and Administrative Law
- A. B. Keith, The King and the Imperial Crown (1936)
- Parliament Report on the powers of the Royal Prerogative
- Taming the Prerogative: Strengthening Ministerial Accountability to Parliament (Government Response)
