Prime Minister?Freundel?Stuart is the newest member of the Queen’s Privy?Council.
A statement from the Prime Minister’s Office, 10 Downing?Street in?London yesterday said: “The Queen has been pleased to approve that the Honourable Freundel Jerome Stuart QC,?MP be sworn of Her Majesty’s most Honourable Privy Council.”
Stuart, 62, joins his two living predecessors, Owen?Arthur (1995) and Sir Lloyd Erskine Sandiford (1989), on the body which is one of the oldest parts of the British government, but it has, over time, adapted to reflect the fact that Britain is a constitutional monarchy.
Appointment to the Privy Council is for life, but only ministers of the democratically elected government of the day participate in its policy work.
The Privy Council Office provides secretariat services for the Privy Council which advises on the exercise of prerogative powers and certain functions assigned to The Queen and the Council by Act of Parliament.
Another major function of the Privy Council, exercised through its Judicial Committee, is the provision of a final Court of Appeal for the UK’s overseas territories and Crown dependencies, and for those Commonwealth countries that have retained the appeal to Her Majesty-in-Council or, in the case of republics, to the Judicial Committee.
Barbados in 2011 replaced the Judicial Committee’s appellate jurisdiction with that of the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), which was set up in 2005. (AB)
