Counsellors of State

English Legal System: Counsellors of State

In the context of the English law, A Dictionary of Law provides the following legal concept of Counsellors of State : Persons appointed under the Regency Acts 1937 to 1953 to exercise royal functions while the sovereign is ill (but not totally incapacitated, in which case the functions pass to a *regent) or temporarily absent from the UK. They are appointed by the sovereign by letters patent, which must specify the functions delegated to them. These must not include the function of dissolving Parliament, except on the sovereign’s express instructions, or that of creating new peers. The persons to be appointed are the sovereign’s spouse, the four next in line to the throne (omitting anyone not qualified to be Regent or intending to be abroad during the period of delegation), and Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.