United Kingdom: The royal prerogative

Abstract

The attention of the legal world has turned, of late, to the question of executive powers. An important site of such power in the British Constitution — although far more important in the past than today — is the royal prerogative. The royal prerogative refers to those powers left over from when the monarch was directly involved in government, powers that now include making treaties, declaring war, deploying the armed forces, regulating the civil service, and granting pardons. Prerogative powers are exercised, today, by government ministers or else by the monarch personally acting, in almost all conceivable instances, under direction from ministers. 1 The defi ning characteristic of the prerogative is that its exercise does not require the approval of Parliament. Beyond this bare account, there is little agreement either on the defi nition of the concept itself 2 — those two giants of English public law scholarship, Blackstone and A. V. Dicey, gave contrasting accounts 3 — or even as to the precise scope of the powers still extant. 4