Community Law Resource Group

Halsbury’s Laws of England (3^rd Ed)  Volume 8  Constitutional law

The Royal Prerogative

(5) THE CROWN IN RELATION TO THE LAW

(i.)                The Crown as the Source of all Jurisdiction

943 Sovereign as the source of all justice.  By virtue of the prerogative the Sovereign is the source and fountain of justice and all jurisdiction derives from her. Hence in legal contemplation, the Sovereign’s Majesty is deemed always to be present in court, and by the terms of the coronation oath, and by the maxims of the common law as also by the ancient charters  and statutes confirming the liberties of the subject, the Sovereign is bound to cause law and justice in mercy to be administered in all judgments. This is however a purely impersonal conception, for the Sovereign cannot personally execute any office  relating to the administration of justice  nor effect an arrest and though all criminal suits must be brought in the Sovereigns name, she could not be non suited  either in criminal or civil proceedings.

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The Statute, continued in Queensland by the Imperial Acts Application Act 1984,

25 EDW 3 St 5 c 4 (1351), reads as follows:

None shall be taken upon suggestion without lawful presentment.

Whereas it is contained in the Great Charter of the Franchises of England, that none shall be imprisoned nor put out of his freehold, nor of his franchises nor free custom , unless it be by the law of the land: it is accorded assented and established , that from henceforth none shall be taken by petition or suggestion made to Our Lord the King, or to his Council, unless it be by indictment or presentment of good and lawful people of the same neighbourhood where such deeds be done, in due manner or by process made by Writ original at the common law , and that none be deprived of his franchises, or of his freeholds, unless he be duly brought in to answer , and forejudged of the same  by the course of the law; and if anything be done against the same, it shall be redressed and holden for none.