Judicial Committee of The Privy Council - Domestic Jurisdiction

Domestic Jurisdiction

The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council has jurisdiction in the following domestic matters:

• Appeals against schemes of the Church Commissioners (who control the estate of the Church of England).
• Appeals from the ecclesiastical courts (the Arches Court of Canterbury and the Chancery Court of York) in non-doctrinal faculty cases.
• Appeals from the High Court of Chivalry.
• Appeals from the Court of Admiralty of the Cinque Ports.
• Appeals from Prize Courts.
• Appeals from the Disciplinary Committee of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons.
• Disputes under the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975.

Additionally, the Government may (through the Queen) refer any issue to the committee for "consideration and report".

Judgments of the Judicial Committee in overseas cases are only of "persuasive authority" in other courts in the United Kingdom; they are not binding as a matter of law, however since the judges of the committee were usually judges of the House of Lords Judicial Committee (essentially the highest court in the United Kingdom) and now usually justices of the UK Supreme court, its decisions are extremely persuasive and usually followed.

The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is the Court of Final Appeal for the Church of England. It hears appeals from the Arches Court of Canterbury and the Chancery Court of York, except on matters of doctrine, ritual or ceremony, which go to the Court for Ecclesiastical Causes Reserved. By the Church Discipline Act 1840 and the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876 all archbishops and bishops of the Church of England became eligible to be members of the Judicial Committee.

Prior to the coming into force of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, the Privy Council was the court of last resort for devolution issues. On 1 October 2009 this jurisdiction was transferred to the new Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.