The Privy Council: Antiquated and anti-democratic

A privy council is a judicial and governmental body that dates back to feudal times and usually advises a monarch on how to exercise the royal prerogatives before carrying them out on their behalf. The Judicial Committee of HM’s Most Honourable Privy Council is one of the highest British courts and remains the highest court of appeal for all UK overseas territories, Crown dependencies and several independent Commonwealth countries, including Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Belize, Grenada, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Tuvalu, as well as the New Zealand states of Niue and Cook Islands. This may seem like a harmless relic that has survived the dissolution of the British Empire, yet its continued existence provides the government with an opportunity to bypass the mechanisms of democracy in a highly obscure manner.

There are currently 546 privy counsellors, all of whom are appointed for life and have usually been, or still are, ministers or senior members of Parliament, and can be recognised by their form of address (right honourable). The counsellors can make orders that circumvent Parliamentary scrutiny and still have the same force as democratically passed legislation. Evidently therefore, this is a vehicle for executive decisions that is open to abuse by any government that wishes to formally issue decisions in the name of the monarch. Commonly cited examples of its most high profile decisions include the eviction of Chagos islanders from their land during the late 1960s and the Blair government’s decision to allow its advisers to issue instructions directly to civil servants. Furthermore, privy counsellors are prioritised over democratically elected MPs to speak in the chambers of Parliament, and they are permitted to speak for longer if they wish.

Justice, the law reform body, has stated that very few members of the public understand the Council’s processes due to its lack of transparency and accessibility. The Council has the potential to take on the form of a constitutional court but this is unlikely due to its dysfunctional nature, which is charaterised by monarchic, judicial, governmental and ceremonial powers. A written constitution would clarify its role and greatly enhance transparency by eliminating the possibility of it being abused by governments wishing to undermine the Parliamentary processes of democracy.