Britain: An official handbook > 1966

GOVERNMENT
43
but, as a rule, not fewer than four are summoned to attend. The whole Privy
Council is called together only on the death of the Sovereign or when the
Sovereign announces his or her intention to marry.
The Privy Council is responsible for the submission for the Sovereign’s
approval of Orders in Council, of which there are two kinds, differing
fundamentally in constitutional principle: those made by virtue of the royal
prerogative, for example, those embodying royal instructions to colonial
Governors; and those which are authorised by Act of Parliament and are a
form of delegated legislation. Members of the Privy Council attending
meetings at which Orders in Council are made do not thereby become
personally responsible for the policy upon which the orders are based; this
rests with the ministers in whose departments the draft orders were framed,
whether they are present at the meeting or not. Certain Orders in Council
must be published in the London Gazette, which is an official periodical
published by the authority of the Government.
The Privy Council also advises the Crown on the issue of royal proclama¬
tions, some of the most important of which relate to prerogative acts (such as
summoning or dissolving Parliament) of the same validity as Acts of Parliament.
Committees of
the Privy
Council
Judicial Committee
There are a number of Privy Council committees whose meetings differ from
those of the Privy Council itself in that the Sovereign cannot constitutionally
be present. These committees, which have advisory functions, may be
prerogative, such as the committee which deals with legislative matters
submitted by the legislatures of the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man; or
they may be provided for by statute as are those for the universities of Oxford
and Cambridge and the Scottish universities, and that which deals with
applications for the grant of charters to municipal corporations.
The administrative work of the Privy Council committees is carried out
in the Privy Council Office under the control of the Lord President of the
Council (see p. 44).
The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is the final court of appeal from
the courts of the United Kingdom dependencies and certain member States
of the Commonwealth, deriving its appellate jurisdiction in respect of such
appeals from the principle of English common law which recognises ‘the
right of all the King’s subjects to appeal for redress to the Sovereign in
Council’ if they believe that the courts of law have failed to do them justice.
The Judicial Committee is also the final court of appeal in a limited class of
ecclesiastical matters, from the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, and from
prize courts1 in the United Kingdom and dependencies.
Appeals come to the Judicial Committee either where a right of appeal
has been specially created, for example, by statute, Order in Council or
Letters Patent, or by special leave of the Sovereign in Council on the advice
of the Judicial Committee. They are heard by a board of the committee,
whose members are generally selected from the Lord Chancellor, ex-Lord
Chancellors and Lords of Appeal in Ordinary, although other members of
the Privy Council who have held high judicial office (including Chief Justices
and certain other judges from other Commonwealth countries who have been
sworn of the Privy Council) may also be asked to sit when business is heavy.
The Judicial Committee does not deliver judgment; it advises the Sovereign,
who acts on its report and approves an Order in Council to give effect thereto.
1 Prize Courts deal with matters concerning property captured in time of war which, by
grace of the Crown, falls to the forces which assist in the capture.