Royal Prerogative

• What is the royal prerogative?

  The residual arbitrary power retained by the Crown and exercisable by the executive (gov).
• What is the royal prerogative in the words of Dicey?

  Dicey - "Every act which the executive government can lawfully do without the authority of an act of parliament".

  Key phrase = 'executive government' as it means, they can do what they want to do without any need for parliamentary legislation.

  The monarch can basically do everything the executive can.

  Dicey states that the RP is a source of law that derives essentially from the common law.
• What is Dicey's classic definition of the RP?

  "The residue of discretionary or arbitrary authority, which at any given time is legally left in the hands of the Crown".

  One other way of looking at the RP is that its been described as an ancient wide-ranging body of powers that the monarch can exercise without approval from parliament.

  So these are powers that the monarchy has but they can exercise those powers without approval from parliament.
• Initially the RP was an exclusive right which the monarch had to make decisions as they saw fit by the issuing of a royal proclamation, so law making by proclamation.