R v Secretary of State for the Home Department, ex p Northumbria Police Authority
The Crown has a prerogative power to keep the peace, which allowed the Home Secretary to supply police forces with equipment.
Facts
The Home Secretary issued a circular stating that he would supply plastic bullets and CS gas from a central store to chief constables who needed them for dealing with serious public disorder, even without the approval of their local police authority. The Northumbria Police Authority argued that the Home Secretary had no power to do this, because the Police Act 1964 gave police authorities the responsibility for equipping their forces.
Legal principle
The Court of Appeal held that the Home Secretary had the power to supply the equipment. Section 41 of the Police Act 1964 gave him a statutory power to provide common services for police forces, which covered the supply. In addition, the Crown had a prerogative power to keep the peace within the realm, which had not been displaced by the 1964 Act. Nourse LJ said that the prerogative power to keep the peace had never been surrendered, and the Act did not expressly or by necessary implication take it away. The decision was criticised for recognising a broad and previously doubtful prerogative power.
Related cases on royal prerogative
- Attorney General v De Keyser's Royal Hotel Ltd [1920] AC 508
- Blackburn v Attorney General [1971] 1 WLR 1037
- Case of Proclamations (1611) 12 Co Rep 74
- Chandler v Director of Public Prosecutions [1964] AC 763
- Council of Civil Service Unions v Minister for the Civil Service [1985] AC 374
- Laker Airways Ltd v Department of Trade [1977] QB 643
- Prohibitions del Roy (1607) 12 Co Rep 63
- R (Abbasi) v Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs [2002] EWCA Civ 1598
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