Royal Prerogative

The royal prerogative is a body of customary authority, privilege, and immunity, recognized in common law and, sometimes in civil law jurisdictions possessing a monarchy, as belonging to the sovereign and which have become widely vested in the government. It is the means by which some of the executive powers of government, possessed by and vested in a monarch with regard to the process of governance of the state, are carried out.

In most constitutional monarchies, prerogatives can be abolished by Parliament as the courts apply the constitutional near-absolute of the supremacy of Parliament. In the Commonwealth realms, this draws on the constitutional statutes at the time of the Glorious Revolution when William III and Mary II were invited to take the throne.

In the United Kingdom, the remaining powers of the royal prerogative are devolved to the head of government which for more than two centuries has been the Prime Minister; the benefits, equally, such as mineral rights in all gold and silver ores, vest in (belong to) the government.

Further in Britain, prerogative powers were originally exercised by the monarch acting, without an observed requirement for parliamentary consent (after its empowerment in certain matters following Magna Carta). Since the accession of the House of Hanover these powers have been, with minor exceptions in economically unimportant sectors, exercised on the advice of the Prime Minister or the Cabinet, who are accountable to Parliament, exclusively so, except in the matters of the Royal Family, since at least the time of William IV.

Typically in liberal democracies that are constitutional monarchies as well as nation states, such as those of Denmark, Norway, or Sweden, the royal prerogative serves in practice as a prescribed ceremonial function of the state power.

Today, prerogative powers fall into two main categories:

Those directly exercised by ministers without the approval of Parliament, including, in some countries such as the UK, the powers to regulate the civil service, issue passports, and grant honors.
Those exercised nominally by the monarch, "on the advice of" (that is, by constitutional convention, however so requested by) the Prime Minister on the advice of Cabinet.

Some key areas of government are carried out by the royal prerogative but its usage is falling as functions are progressively made statutory.

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