royal prerogative

Under the monarchial constitution of the United Kingdom, the majority of prerogative powers are nowadays exercised by the government of the day or the judiciary in the name of the Crown. Two principal authoritative definitions are relied on by the courts today; that of Sir William Blackstone and that of Professor A.V. Dicey. From this we can see that the prerogative is inherent in and peculiar to the Crown, prerogatives are recognized by the courts, the rights and powers are residual: they cover areas over which Parliament has not enacted statutes and they can be limited by Parliament and the prerogative legitimises executive actions without the need for an Act of Parliament. The definitions give rise to a number of questions. On the one hand, the executive has too much power to exercise in the name of the Crown which leads to a problem of abuse of power. On the other hand, it makes the scope of the prerogative power ambiguous and it seems that the prerogative power is somehow in conflict and inconsistence with Acts of Parliament. Therefore, it is essential for the courts and Parliament to prevent the abuse of such powers through case law and enactment.

Since 1688, majority of the prerogative power has transferred to the executive. There were number of cases that the defendants sought for jurisdiction after the executive exercised the prerogative power in areas where no enacted statutes protected. Traditionally, as noted above, the courts had jurisdiction to decide whether a prerogative existed and, if so, its scope. Judges would not examine the merits of the exercise of the prerogative. In the case of Attorney General v de Keyser’s Royal Hotel Ltd (1920), the House of Lords ruled that where an Act of Parliament covers the same scope as a prerogative, the Act of Parliament prevails and the prerogative – if not expressly abolished – is placed is abeyance (effectively suspended). Accordingly, the government could not choose to use the prerogative to award a