Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council is a body of advisors to the British Sovereign. Its members are largely senior politicians, who were or are members of either the House of Commons of the United Kingdom or House of Lords.
The Privy Council was formerly a powerful institution, but its policy decisions are now controlled by one of its committees, the Cabinet of the United Kingdom.
Thus the Cabinet is a committee of the Privy Council.
Functions:
- advises the Sovereign on the exercise of the Royal Prerogative
- issues executive orders known as Orders-in-Council and Orders of Council. Orders-in-Council make government regulations and appointments. Orders of Council are issued under the specific authority of Acts of Parliament, which delegate such matters to the Council, and are normally used to regulate public institutions.
Указы-в-Совете пишутся начерно Кабинетом, и используются для простых правительственных постановлений. Также они используются для выдачи королевской санкции на законы, прошедшие законодательные органы зависимых территорий. Назначения на должность в Кабинете также делаются Указами-в-Совете.
В отличие от Указов-в-Совете существуют ещё Указы Совета. Они издаются не Сувереном, а членами Тайного совета без участия Суверена. Они издаются по отдельному разрешению актов парламента, и обычно используются для управления общественными учреждениями.
- advises on the issuing of Royal Charters, which grant special status to incorporated bodies and city and borough status to towns.
- performs judicial functions, which are for the most part delegated to the Judicial Committee. The Committee consists of senior judges appointed as Privy Counsellors. It was formerly a supreme court of appeal for the entire British Empire, and continues to hear appeals from British Overseas Territories, Sovereign Base Areas, Crown Dependencies and some Commonwealth countries.
The Sovereign, when acting on the Council's advice, is known as the "King-in-Council" or "Queen-in-Council". The members of the Council are collectively known as "The Lords of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council".
Members:
A Privy Counsellor is said to be "sworn of" the Council when he or she first joins it. The Sovereign may appoint anyone a Privy Counsellor, but in practice appointments are made only on the advice of the Government, and generally consist only of senior members of the government. There is no limit to the numbers sworn in as members. As of August 2008 there are 538 members. The bulk of Privy Counsellors are politicians.
- The chief officer of the PC - the Lord President of the Council, who is the fourth highest Great Officer of State, a member of the Cabinet, and normally, the Leader of either the House of Lords or the House of Commons.
- Another important official is the Clerk, whose signature is appended to all orders made in the Council.
- the Church of England's three highest ecclesiastics—the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of London.
- Senior members of the Royal Family may also be appointed—Prince Philip is a member, the most senior at present in terms of service.
- The Private Secretary to the Sovereign is always appointed to the Council.
- Several senior judges—Lords of Appeal in Ordinary, judges of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, judges of the Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland and judges of the Inner House of the Court of Session (the highest court in Scotland)—are also named to the Privy Council.
- The Prime Minister, ministers in the cabinet, and the Leader of the Opposition must be sworn to the Privy Council on appointment. Leaders of large parties in the House of Commons, First Ministers of the devolved assemblies, some senior ministers outside the cabinet, and on occasion senior Parliamentarians are appointed Privy Counsellors.
As Privy Counsellors are bound by their oath to keep matters discussed at Council meetings secret, the appointment of the leaders of Opposition parties as Privy Counsellors allows the Government to share confidential information with them "on Privy Council terms". This usually only happens in special circumstances, such as in matters of national security. For example Tony Blair met with Leader of the Opposition Iain Duncan Smith and Leader of the Liberal Democrats Charles Kennedy on privy council terms to discuss the evidence for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
- Although the Privy Council is primarily a British institution, officials from some other Commonwealth realms are also appointed to the body. The most notable continuing instance is New Zealand, whose Prime Minister, senior politicians, Chief Justice and Court of Appeal judges are conventionally made Privy Counsellors
- Prime Ministers of some other Commonwealth countries which retain the Queen as their sovereign continue to be sworn as Privy Counsellors.
Membership ceases upon the dissolution of the Privy Council, which automatically occurs six months after the death of a monarch.
The Sovereign may however remove an individual from the Council, and individuals may choose to resign to avoid expulsion. The last individual to leave the Privy Council voluntarily was Jonathan Aitken, who left in 1997 following allegations of perjury. He was one of only three Privy Counsellors to resign in the twentieth century (the others being John Profumo, who resigned on 26 June 1963, and John Stonehouse, who resigned on 17 August 1976). The last individual to be expelled from the Council against his will was Sir Edgar Speyer, 1st Baronet, who was removed on 13 December 1921 for pro-German activities during the First World War.
Meetings of the Privy Council are normally held once each month wherever the Sovereign may be residing at the time. The Sovereign attends the meeting, though his or her place may be taken by two or more Counsellors of State. Counsellors of State may be chosen from amongst the Sovereign's spouse and the four individuals next in the line of succession who are over 21 years of age (18 for the Heir to the Throne).
Normally the Sovereign remains standing at meetings of the Privy Council, so that no other members may sit down, thereby keeping meetings short. The Lord President reads out a list of Orders to be made, and the Sovereign merely says "Approved."
Only a few privy counsellors attend these regular meetings. The settled practice is that day-to-day meetings of the Council are attended by four privy counsellors, usually the Ministers responsible for the matters being approved.
Full meetings of the Privy Council are only held when the reigning Sovereign announces his or her own engagement (which last happened on 23 November 1839, in the reign of Queen Victoria); or when there is a Demise of the Crown, either by the death or abdication of the monarch.
In the case of a demise of the crown, the Privy Council—together with the Lords Spiritual, the Lords Temporal, the Lord Mayor of the City of London, the Aldermen of the City of London and representatives of Commonwealth nations—makes a proclamation declaring the accession of the new Sovereign and receives an oath from the new monarch relating to the security of the Church of Scotland, as required by law.
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