Dictionary:

Privy Council

  (prĭv'ē)

1. A council of the British sovereign that until the 17th century was the supreme legislative body, that now consists of cabinet ministers ex officio and others appointed for life, and that has no important function except through its Judicial Committee, which in certain cases acts as a supreme appellate court in the Commonwealth.
2. privy council An advisory council to an executive.

The British monarch's advisory group. Once a key part of executive power, it now exists as the formal machinery through which the monarch exercises prerogative powers. Its role primarily is as a dignified part of the constitution, although it retained an efficient role, for instance, in its facilitation of former polytechnics being granted university status in the early 1990s. The privy council is supervised by the Lord President of the Council and, whilst its membership extends to all past and present cabinet ministers and other public figures, it is generally attended by a select few. The judicial committee of the Privy Council provides a constitutional basis for the Law Lords (from the House of Lords) to meet as a final court of appeal for certain commonwealth and colonial countries. As such it can act as a quasi-supreme court in interpreting state constitutions. It took on a heightened role with the advent of devolution in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland in assuming the role of judging whether certain powers lay within the legislative competence of the devolved institutions.

In Canada, the Privy Council Office is the functional equivalent of a cabinet office.

— Jonathan Bradbury

For more information on Privy Council, visit Britannica.com.

The fate of most councils or committees is to grow too large to be effective and to be replaced by an executive or inner caucus, like a series of Russian dolls. The council of late medieval times became too big and in the late 1530s a smaller Privy Council was set up. To a considerable extent this was the work of Thomas Cromwell. In 1540 the Privy Council, with some 20 members, acquired a clerk and a minute book. It became the work-horse of late Tudor government. The Long Parliament replaced it in 1649 by a Council of State, but Richard Cromwell restored it, and it was continued by Charles II after 1660. But its great days were by then over. The emergence of the cabal in the 1670s and James II's use of an inner cabinet in the 1680s heralded its fate, and it began to lose importance, first to the cabinet council, then to the cabinet. As the Privy Council continued to grow, its duties became almost purely formal, and by 1994 membership had risen to more than 400.

Privy Council was a body of advisers who provided policy advice to the British sovereign. The council contained the ministers of state who held leading administrative positions for the British Empire. The Crown performed all official business concerning Anglo-America at the Privy Council meetings. The council heard appeals from colonial courts, had veto power over colonial legislation, advised the monarch on the appointment of royal governors, and recommended the issuance of proclamations. Committees within the Privy Council for the over-sight of the colonies were the Board of Trade and Plantations, the Council for Foreign Plantations, the Colonial Board, and the Committee for Trade and Plantations.

Bibliography

Christie, I. R. Crisis of Empire: Great Britain and the American Colonies, 1754–1783. New York: Norton, 1966.

Turner, Edward Raymond. The Privy Council of England in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, 1603–1784. 2 vols. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1927–1928.

Ubbelohde, Carl. The American Colonies and the British Empire, 1607–1763. New York: Crowell, 1968.

The Privy Council is the British Crown's private council. It is composed of more than three hundred members, including cabinet members, distinguished scholars, judges, and legislators. Once a powerful body, it has lost most of the judicial and political functions it exercised since the middle of the seventeenth century and has largely been replaced by the Cabinet.

The Privy Council derived from the King's Council, which was created during the Middle Ages. In 1540 the Privy Council came into being as a small executive committee that advised the king and administered the government. It advised the sovereign on affairs of state and the exercise of the royal prerogative. It implemented its power through royal proclamations, orders, instructions, and informal letters, and also by giving directions to and receiving reports from the judges who traveled the circuits, hearing cases in cities and towns, twice a year. It concerned itself with public order and security, the economy, public works, public authorities and corporations, local government, Ireland, the Channel Islands, the colonies, and foreign affairs.

The inner circle of advisers in the Privy Council met in the royal chamber or cabinet and was therefore called the cabinet council. In the eighteenth century, the cabinet became the council for the prime minister, the leader of Parliament. The United States adopted the cabinet idea, though its legal status is not identified in the Constitution. Cabinet members are presidential advisers who serve as executive branch department heads.

The power of the Privy Council disappeared between 1645 and 1660 during the English Civil War and the government of Oliver Cromwell. It never recovered its former position. Long policy debates shifted to Parliament, and important executive decisions went to committees. In modern days members of the Privy Council rarely meet as a group, delegating their work to committees.

The lord president of the council, who is a member of the cabinet, is the director of the Privy Council Office. The most important committee is the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which comprises all members of the council who have held high judicial office. Usually, however, three to five Lords of Appeal sit to hear appeals from the United Kingdom, the British Crown colonies, and members of the Commonwealth. The committee does not give a judgment but prepares a report to the sovereign, and its decision may be implemented in an Order in Council. The work of the committee has diminished because it rarely hears ecclesiastical appeals and because many Commonwealth countries have abolished the right of appeal.

See: curia regis.

The Privy Council of Japan (枢密院, Sumitsu-in^?) was an advisory council to the Emperor of Japan that operated from 1888 to 1947.

Sumitsu-in building from 1922

Modeled in part upon the Privy Council of the United Kingdom, this body advised the throne on matters of grave importance including: (1) proposed amendments to the 1889 Imperial Household Law and the Constitution of the Empire of Japan; (2) matters of constitutional interpretation, proposed laws, and ordinances; (3) proclamations of martial law and declaration of war; (4) treaties and other international agreements; (5) matters concerning the succession to the throne and declarations of a regency under the Imperial Household Law; and (6) other matters submitted by the emperor (generally on the advice of the cabinet). Thus, the Privy Council had both judicial functions and certain executive functions. However, the council had no power to initiate legislation.

The Privy Council of Japan was established by an imperial ordinance of Emperor Meiji dated 28 April 1888, under the presidency of Ito Hirobumi, to deliberate on the draft constitution. The new constitution, which the emperor promulgated on 11 February 1889, briefly mentioned the Privy Council in Chapter 5, Article 46: "The Privy Councilors shall, in accordance with the provisions for the organization of the Privy Council, deliberate upon important matters of State when they have been consulted by the Emperor."

The Privy Council consisted of a chairman, a vice chairman(non-voting), twelve (later expanded to twenty-four) councilors, a chief secretary, and three additional secretaries. All privy councilors including the president and the vice president were appointed by the emperor for life, on the advice of the prime minister and the cabinet. In addition to the twenty-four voting privy counselors, the prime minister and the other ministers of state were ex-officio members of the council. The princes of the imperial household (both the shinnōke and the ōke) over the age of majority were permitted to attend meetings of the Privy Council and could participate in its proceedings. The president had extraordinary power, as it was he who called and controlled the meetings of the Council. The Council always met in secret at the Tokyo Imperial Palace, with the emperor in attendance on important occasions. The Council was empowered to deliberate on any matters upon which the emperor desired an opinion.

Assessments on the importance of the Privy Council vary from claims that it was the single most powerful agency in the Meiji government (probably true legally and theoretically), to allegations that it was completely insignificant in terms of national politics (probably also true in terms of actual practice). During its early years, many members of the Privy Council were simultaneously members of the elected government; however in its later years, the Privy Council essentially replaced the genro and the Genroin as a very conservative “old boys” club, often at odds with the party-dominated elected government. After the Privy Council challenged the government by attempting to reject several government decisions, and by attempting to assert itself on certain foreign policy issues, it became clear that the balance of power was with the elected government. The Privy Council was thenceforth largely ignored, and it was not even consulted when Japan decided to declare war on the United States in 1941.

The Privy Council was abolished with the enforcement of the current postwar Constitution of Japan on 3 May 1947.

Chairmen of the Privy Council

	Name	Dates as Chairman
1	Ito Hirobumi	30 June 1888 – 30 October 1889
2	Oki Takato	24 December 1889 – 1 June 1891
3	Ito Hirobumi	1 June 1891 – 8 August 1892
4	Oki Takato	8 August 1892 – 11 March 1893
5	Yamagata Aritomo	11 March 1893 – 12 December 1893
6	Kuroda Kiyotaka	17 March 1894 – 25 August 1900
7	Saionji Kinmochi	27 August 1900 – 13 July 1903
8	Ito Hirobumi	13 July 1903 – 21 December 1905
9	Yamagata Aritomo	21 December 1905 – 14 June 1909
10	Ito Hirobumi	14 June 1909 – 26 October 1909
11	Yamagata Aritomo	26 October 1909 – 1 February 1922
12	Kiyoura Keigo	8 February 1922 – 7 January 1924
13	Hamao Arata	13 January 1924 – 25 September 1925
14	Hozumi Nobushige	1 October 1925 – 8 April 1926
15	Kuratomi Yuzaburo	12 April 1926 – 3 May 1934
16	Ichiki Kitokuro	3 May 1934 – 13 March 1936
17	Hiranuma Kiichiro	13 March 1936 – 5 January 1939
18	Konoe Fumimaro	5 January 1939 – 24 June 1940
19	Hara Yoshimichi	24 June 1940 – 7 August 1944
20	Suzuki Kantaro	7 August 1944 – 7 June 1945
21	Hiranuma Kiichiro	9 April 1945 – 3 December 1945
22	Suzuki Kantaro	15 December 1945 – 13 June 1946
23	Shimizu Toru	13 June 1946 – 26 September 1946

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