In the Australian Federal parliament at least certain speakers were always able to make ‘Honorable’ drip with sarcasm thicker than molasses when discussing the Hon. Member opposite and their apparent shortcomings.
Sorry, what?
If you look carefully you might notice hundreds of little microphones hanging down from the ceiling over all the benches. When a Member stands up to speak, the microphone picks up his voice and pipes it through loads of speakers that are built into the benches of the House and the Speaker’s chair. You should be able to see them in between sitting Members’ heads.
Useful if a Member is hard of hearing or a bit of a mumbler.
Hope you’re enjoying learning about our Parliament. Have you seen any debates in the Lords? You’re in for a treat there!
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I think that was meant as a slightly garbled reference to incorporating the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law and replacing appeals to the Law Lords with the Supreme Court.
The Privy Council is another matter, since some Commonwealth jurisdictions still retain an ultimate right of appeal to the Sovereign, handled by the Privy Council’s Judicial Committee in the light of their local laws, not the ECHR. AFAIK Australia opted out of this a long time ago - did it really opt to follow or even to take any notice of ECHR rulings?
Actually, you are not far off…
The UK has a very limited system of appeals on specific matters from UK courts to the judicial committee of the Privy Council. They still have that system, so anything which starts by talking about the govermnent realigning appeals away from the Privy Council is not talking about the UK.
While Australia did have a wider system of appeals from the Australian courts to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, they did away with it some decades ago and, as you point out, did not replace it with a system of appeals to any supranational European Court.
I don’t think any country has switched from one of these systems to the other.
On re-reading my message, I see that although I was /replying/ to a post about Australia, in the context of a thread about the UK my words were not clear :).
Right Honorable Members in Aus, the UK, and Canada, are, as mentioned above, members of the Privy Council. In the UK parliament, that normally means ministers. In Australia, it meant the Prime Minister, except that he is no longer made a member of the Privy council, and is no longer Right Honorable. In Canada, it means a member of the Canadian Privy Council. Don’t know much about Canada. Could be wrong.
Prime Minister of Aus stopped being a member of the UK Privy Council when Aus replaced appeal from the Aus court system, to the (UK) Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, with appeal from the Aus courts to the European appeal system.
Yes, I’m afraid you are wrong.
Canadians haven’t been appointed to the British Privy Council for half a century. Prime Minister Pearson ended that practice as part of Canada’s Centennial in 1967.
Instead, the Governor General, the Prime Minister and the Chief Justice of Canada automatically are entitled to the honorific of “Right Honourable” for life. In addition, the Gov Gen can appoint other individuals with long public service as “Right Honourable” for life, on the advice of the PM and Cabinet.
All Cabinet members are appointed “The Honourable” for life, upon being sworn into office as members of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada.
I echo UDS: Sorry, what?
Getting back to the OP, there are good wiki articles on both “The Right Honourable” and “The Honourable”.
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Although Australian Prime Ministers stopped being appointed to the UK Privy Council at around the same time as appeals from Australian courts to the Privy Council were discontinued, the two developments are not directly linked. Sequence of events:
(a) 1968: Appeals from Commonwealth Courts to Privy Council abolished. Appeals from state courts continue.
(b) 1972: Upon becoming PM, Gough Whitlam declines appointment to the Privy Council.
(c) 1975: Upon becoming PM, Malcolm Fraser accepts appointment to the Privy Council. He is the last Australian PM to be appointed.
(d) 1983: Upon becoming PM, Paul Keating declines appointment to the Privy Council.
(e) 1986: As part of the repatriation of the Australian Constitution, appeals to the Privy Council from state courts are terminated by the Australia Act 1986. -
There is no appeal from the Australian courts to the “European appeal system”, whatever that is. There never has been. None has ever been proposed, SFAIK. The discontinuance of appeals to the Privy Council left the High Court of Australia as the final appeal court in the Australian judicial system.
There’s still the constitutional provision for inter se appeals by Leave of the High Court, isn’t there?
But only granted once and the results so bad that the High Court has said “Never again!”