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Central Government

The trustee can be either a person or a legal entity such as a company. A trust may have one or multiple trustees. A trustee has many rights and responsibilities; these vary from trust to trust depending on the type of the trust. A trust generally will not fail solely for want of a trustee. A court may appoint a trustee, or in Ireland the trustee may be any administrator of a charity to which the trust is related. Trustees are usually appointed in the document (instrument) which creates the trus

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24 views2 pages

Central Government

The trustee can be either a person or a legal entity such as a company. A trust may have one or multiple trustees. A trustee has many rights and responsibilities; these vary from trust to trust depending on the type of the trust. A trust generally will not fail solely for want of a trustee. A court may appoint a trustee, or in Ireland the trustee may be any administrator of a charity to which the trust is related. Trustees are usually appointed in the document (instrument) which creates the trus

Uploaded by

Bwiranda Kennedy max
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1

CENTRAL GOVERNMENT

The Privy Council

Historical origins
Since 1066, the Monarch has appointed a Chancellor, who was head of the King’s administration and had
custody of the Great Seal. The Chancellor had responsibility for the administration of law, drawing up royal
writs and exercising judicial powers. The Chancellor has always been a Member of the King’s Council. The
Privy Council may be viewed as the successor to the Curia Regis, the supreme legislative, executive and judicial
body. The Council is traceable to the thirteenth century. It was through the Privy Council that monarchs would
rule without recourse to Parliament. Under Edward I (1272–1307), it was difficult to discern whether legislative
acts emanated from the King in Parliament or the King in Council.1 Throughout the fourteenth century, however,
there were serious conflicts between the Council and Parliament and, in the reigns of Henry IV (1399–1413) and
Henry V (1413–22), there is evidence of the Commons petitioning the King against the jurisdiction seized by the
Council. The Council by this time was exercising judicial powers in relation to both criminal and civil litigation.
Enforcement of the criminal law, where offences against the state were alleged or officers of state were
involved, was effected by the feared Court of Star Chamber.2 To this claim to wide civil and criminal
jurisdiction came parliamentary objection on the basis that the Star Chamber was usurping the function of the
common law courts. FW Maitland writes of the Council at this time that:

The Tudor reigns are, we may say, the golden age of the Council: the Council exercises enormous powers of
the most various kinds; but it is not an independent body – as against the King it has little power or none at all.
[1908, p 256]

By the reign of Henry VIII (1509–47), the Council comprised Privy Councillors – the King’s elite advisers – and
ordinary Councillors – lawyers and administrators. Over time, the Council fragmented into committees dealing
with specified matters. The Council survived the abolition of the Star Chamber, although its powers were much
weakened. Following the restoration of the monarchy, it became the body on which the King relied for advice.
With the abolition of the Star Chamber, did the Council lose all its judicial powers? From early times the
Council had asserted jurisdiction over territory overseas which fell under the suzerainty of the English Crown.
With the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man coming under the Crown’s protection in the thirteenth century, the
seeds were sown for the Privy Council’s jurisdiction over civil and criminal appeals from the British Empire and
Commonwealth.
The Privy Council is traceable to the thirteenth century. It was through the Privy Council that monarchs
would rule without recourse to Parliament. With the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the rise of parliamentary
sovereignty, the role of the Council changed. Under William, the inner circle of the Council became known as
the Cabinet Council. Through this Cabinet, the King could exercise all his powers, although he had to have
recourse to the wider membership of the Privy Council in order to undertake acts which required Orders in
Council, the formal means by which such prerogative acts came into effect. It was the Privy Council which
determined the summoning and dissolution of Parliament, although it seems clear that the King would act
through Orders in Council published after consultation with an inner circle of the Privy Council. The early
origins of Cabinet government can be seen here. As FW Maitland observed:

We now see how it is legally possible for the work of government to fall into the hands of a small number of the
Council – those Members who hold the high offices of state and who have control over the seals of office. If the

1 Maitland, 1908, p 136.


2 Abolished in 1640.
2

King has with him the Chancellor, the Treasurer or First Lord of the Treasury, the Lord Privy Seal, and the
Secretaries of State, he can get his work done without consulting the mass of Privy Councillors. If, for any
purpose, an Order in Council is required, a meeting of the King with just these few intimate advisers will be a
good enough meeting of the Privy Council at which Orders in Council can be made. So much is the legal
possibility of Cabinet government. [1908, p 394]

While King William and Queen Anne attended Council meetings regularly, a change of practice occurred with
the reign of George I (1714–27) and George II (1727–60). Neither could speak English, and nor were they
particularly concerned with English matters. Accordingly, the Cabinet began to meet without the King. Under
George III (1760–1820), the same situation prevailed, the Cabinet meeting without the King and communicating
its decision to the King. Again, we find the origins of today’s Cabinet, with the three principles of Cabinet
government becoming apparent: those of ‘political unanimity, common responsibility to Parliament and a
common leader’.3 With the rise of the Cabinet system of government in the eighteenth century, the Privy
Council gradually lost much of its power.4

3 Maitland, 1908, p 395.


4 See Mackintosh, 1977, Chapter 2. On the constitutional struggles between King, courts and Parliament, see Chapter 5.

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