Royal prerogative in the United Kingdom

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• published: 10 May 2016
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The royal prerogative is a body of customary authority, privilege, and immunity, recognised in the United Kingdom as the sole prerogative of the Sovereign and the source of many of the executive powers of the British government. Prerogative powers were formerly exercised by the monarch acting on his or her own initiative. Since the 19th century, by convention, the advice of the prime minister or the cabinetwho are then accountable to Parliament for the decisionhas been required in order for the prerogative to be exercised. The monarch remains constitutionally empowered to exercise the royal prerogative against the advice of the prime minister or the cabinet, but in practice would only do so in emergencies or where existing precedent does not adequately apply to the circumstances in question. Today the royal prerogative is available in the conduct of the government of the United Kingdom, including foreign affairs, defence, and national security. The monarchy has a significant constitutional presence in these and other matters, but limited power, because the exercise of the prerogative is in the hands of the prime minister and other ministers or other government officials. The prerogative appears to be historically and as a matter of fact nothing else than the residue of discretionary or arbitrary authority which at any given time is legally left in the hands of the crown. The prerogative is the name of the remaining portion of the Crown's original authority ... Every act which the executive government can lawfully do without the authority of an Act of Parliament is done in virtue of the prerogative. By the word prerogative we usually understand that special pre-eminence which the King hath, over and above all other persons, and out of the ordinary course of common law, in right of his regal dignity ... it can only be applied to those rights and capacities which the King enjoys alone, in contradiction to others, and not to those which he enjoys in common with any of his subjects. Dicey's opinion that any action of governance by the monarch beyond statute is under the prerogative diverges from Blackstone's that the prerogative simply covers those actions that no other person or body in the United Kingdom can undertake, such as the dissolution of Parliament. Case law exists to support both views. Blackstone’s notion of the prerogative being the powers of an exclusive nature was favoured by Lord Parmoor in the De Keyser’s Royal Hotel case of 1920, but some difficulty with it was expressed by Lord Reid in the Burmah Oil case of 1965. A clear distinction has not been necessary in the relevant cases, and the courts may never need to settle the question as few cases deal directly with the prerogative itself. The royal prerogative originated as the personal power of the monarch. From the 13th century in England, as in France, the monarch was all-powerful, but this absolute power was checked by 'the recrudescence of feudal turbulence in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries'. An early attempt to define the royal prerogative was stated by Richard II's judges in 1387. At the same time, Henry and his descendants normally followed the will of the courts, despite the fact they were theoretically not bound by judges. William Holdsworth infers that by regularly asking the legal officers of the crown and judiciary for legal advice and consent, Henry recognised the need for a stable government to follow the law. He also contends that the view that the law is supreme over all 'was the view of all the leading lawyers and statesmen and publicists of the Tudor period'. It was accepted that while the King had 'unfettered discretion', he was limited in areas where the courts had imposed conditions on the use of the prerogative, or where he had chosen to do so. Video Empire produces videos read aloud. Use the information in this video at your own risk. We cannot always guarantee accuracy. This video uses material from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_prerogative_in_the_United_Kingdom, licensed with CC Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0. This video is licensed with CC Attribution-Share-Alike 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/ In order to adapt this content it is required to comply with the license terms. Image licensing information is available via: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_prerogative_in_the_United_Kingdom