PRIVY-COUNCIL 



429 



With regard to the administrative business which 

 remains with the Privy-council as a separate depart- 

 ment of state it must be remembered as a general 

 principle that the work is actually done by perman- 

 ent government officials, under the control of the 

 Lord President of the Council, who is responsible 

 to parliament and to the country. It is believed 

 that this is substantially the case even when special 

 committees are appointed by act of parliament for 

 special administrative purposes. That the members 

 of such committees are little more than advisers 

 results nat 11 rally from the modern doctrine of minis- 

 terial responsibility. With this limitation, com- 

 mittees of the Privy-council exercise in many cases 

 a delegated legislative power. For example, in the 

 grant of charters to boroughs under the Municipal 

 Corporation Act, 1882, every petition for a charter 

 is referred to a Committee of Council, which has 

 power to consider it, and to settle a scheme for 

 adjusting the rights and liabilities of the existing 

 local authority. Under the Medical Acts the Privy- 

 cooucil is entrusted with the supervision of the 

 qualifications and the registration of medical prac- 

 titioners ; and kindred powers are conferred by the 

 Pharmacy Act, 1868, and the Veterinary Surgeons 

 Act, 1881. For the Committee of Council on Edu- 

 cation, see EDUCATION. A Universities Committee 

 of the Privy-council was constituted for England in 

 1877, and for Scotland in 1889 (see UNIVERSITIES). 



The style under which administrative duties are 

 imposed on the Privy-council varies. Sometimes 

 it is referred to simply as the Privy-council ; 

 occasionally a clause is added that 'all powers 

 vested in the Privy-council by this act may be 

 exercised by an order in council made by two or 

 more of the Lords and others of H.M. Most 

 Honourable Privy-council' (Veterinary Surgeons 

 Act, 1881, sect. 18). Sometimes the duty is laid 

 upon ' the Lords and others of H.M. Most Honour- 

 able Privy-council, or any three or more of them of 

 whom the Lord President of the Council, or one of 

 H.M. principal secretaries of state for the time being, 

 shall always be one* (9 and 10 Viet. chap. 96). 



( 3 ) The Prii-y-ctjiiiicil in its widest Comprehension. 

 The Privy-council, as a body, has in modern 

 times no regular duties at all, administrative or 

 judicial. Membership of it is a coveted honour, 

 conferring rank, precedence, and titular dignity. 

 It cannot, however, be fairly described as obsolete 

 or dead, and on rare and .abnormal occasions it has 

 exercised powers not falling strictly within the 

 sphere of ordinary legislative or judicial authority. 

 Thus, the Privy -council in 1788 took on itself the 

 duty of inquiring into the sanity of George III. 

 and receiving the reports of the royal physicians. 

 In 1821 it determined the constitutional question 

 of Queen Caroline's right to be crowned as Queen 

 Consort. But in general it is a force kept per- 

 manently in reserve, apart from the working ele- 

 ments of the constitution. And, as the character 

 of British constitutional growth has ever been the 

 adaptation of old expedients to newly felt needs, 

 the possibility remains that some unforeseen con- 

 stitutional convulsion may recall this ancient and 

 honourable body from its merely nominal dignity 

 to at least temporary life and usefulness. 



( 4 ) The Judicial Committee of the Privy-council. 

 The most important of all the offshoots of the 

 Privy-council is the Judicial Committee. Olficially 

 it is merely a committee. In essence it is a court 

 of law, possessing a wide and (indirectly owing to 

 its connection with the Privy-council) a peculiarly 

 elastic jurisdiction, which includes appeals from 

 the ecclesiastical courts, petitions for the extension 

 of letters-patent for inventions, and, above all, ap- 

 peals from Indian and colonial courts of law. The 

 history of this last branch of the appellate jurisdic- 

 tion of the Privy -council is exceedingly complicated, 



and we cannot enter upon it minutely here. Three 

 distinct and conflicting theories have been promul- 

 gated upon the subject. ( 1 ) According to Pownall 

 (Administration of the Colonies, 1774), when the 

 necessity for an appeal from the decisions of the 

 colonial governors, who, although not properly 

 qualified lawyers, were yet called upon to preside 

 in the courts of law, was clearly apprehended, the 

 one precedent of a judicature within the realm 

 possessing foreign jurisdiction which presented 

 itself to the minds of the English sovereign and 

 his advisers was that of the jurisdiction of the 

 Privy-council over the Channel Islands. Since the 

 time of King John ( 1204 ) appeals from the royal 

 courts in Jersey and Guernsey with the latter of 

 which Alderney and Sark were for judicial purposes 

 united had lieen brought l>efore the king and his 

 council in England. Now the English sovereign 

 claimed a claim which the colonials acquiesced in, 

 and which the House of Commons itself had tacitly 

 admitted that his colonial settlements and posses- 

 sions were the demesnes of the crown, lying quite 

 beyond the jurisdiction or cognisance of the state. 

 The historical relation between the feudal duchies 

 of King John and the royal plantations and posses- 

 sions abroad being so intimate, no great effort of 

 administrative imagination was necessary to make 

 the analogy complete. Thus it came to pass 

 that appeals from the courts constituted in the 

 various colonies were taken not to the House of 

 Lords, nor to the courts of law and equity, but 

 to the king in council. (2) A second theory 

 is suggested by Macqueen viz. that the Privy- 

 council originally entertained colonial petitions 

 under the authority of a reference from trie peers, 

 and that, when the intervals, gradually becom- 

 ing longer, between the sessions of parliament 

 rendered this mode of redress unsatisfactory, 

 the council came to discharge in their own right 

 those functions which would have been delegated 

 to them by the peers if parliament had been sum- 

 moned. (3) The statute 2o Hen. VIII. chap. 9 

 appears to suggest a third explanation of the 

 origin of the appellate jurisdiction of the Privy- 

 council. Under that act, a subject aggrieved by 

 the decision of any court in any part of the king s 

 dominions might appeal to the King in chancery. 

 Every such appeal was referred by commission 

 under the Great Seal to the Court of Delegates, 

 the decisions of which were, in spite of a distinct 

 prohibition in a statute of Elizabeth, reviewed 

 upon petition by the Privy-council. These theories 

 relate to different periods of time, and thus, al- 

 though apparently conflicting, are not necessarily 

 irreconcilable. One central fact, the right of the 

 sovereign to entertain an appeal from any colonial 

 court, is undisputed and indisputable. We know 

 that, in less than a century, the body to which the 

 crown entrusted the administration of colonial 

 affairs was repeatedly reconstituted, and there is no 

 reason why the judicature for colonial appeals may 

 not have undergone similar changes in the course of 

 three centuries. The modern history of the jmli 

 cial committee is well known. The statute 2 and 

 3 Will. IV. chap. 92 transferred to the king in 

 council the jurisdiction of the Court of Delegates ; 

 3 ami 4 Will. IV. chap. 41 formally created the 

 judicial committee, and vested in it all the judicial 

 authority of the Privy-council, the Commissioners 

 of Appeals in prize causes, and the Court of Dele- 

 gates. The judicial committee comprises the Lord 

 President of the Council, the Lord Chancellor, the 

 Lords Justices, and such other members of the 

 Privy-council at large as shall hold or shall have held 

 certain judicial or other offices enumerated in the 

 acts. By 34 and 35 Viet. chap. 91 Queen Victoria 

 was empowered by order in council to appoint by 

 warrant under her sign-manual four additional 



