Who All Is Hono(u)rable?

Factual Questions
1

This is one of those niggling, never-quite-worth-asking questions, and rereading the Staff Report on ‘Esquire’ finally motivated me to get around to asking it.

The term Honorable (which picks up a U outside North America) seems to have a wide assortment of applications to certain groups of public figures. In the countries where the House of Windsor reigns-but-does-not-rule, there seems to be a bunch of people who are Right Hono(u)rable, as well.

As far as I can tell, the following people get the appelation:
[ul][li]Most but not all judges[/li][li]State governors[/li][li]Congresscritters and state legislators, and Members of Parliament[/li][li]Governors general (and their lieutenant governors?)[/li][li]Untitled commoner descendants of a high-rank peer or Royal Family member[/li][li]Privy councilors of all sorts[/li][/ul]

As far as I can tell, if you’ve ever held public office in the U.K., you become Right Honourable, but the only Canadian who is is the Governor General. It doesn’t appear there are any Honourable Australians, though I’m sure there are people there who deserve to be considered honorable in terms of their integrity.

Obviously, this collection needs some work, to refine, edit, and add to the list, to define who gets the appellation and why better, and sort out the differences between various countries. Anyone feel moved to critique it, nitpick, offer explanations or bad puns, or otherwise contribute?

2

Well, here are two links for you from the Wikipedia:

Right Honourable

and

Honourable

The list is kind of long and has a certain complexity to it owing to the possibility of an individual already having a higher title (such as Most Honourable).

3

Nitpick: Canadians use Honourable too, and the Prime Minister and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court get to be Right Honourable as well as the GG.

4

Poly, for Canadian usage, check out this web-page of the Saskatchewan Office of Protocol and Honours, which has a downloadable manual in either pdf or Word format.

“Right Honourable” is reserved for the Governor General, the Prime Minister and the Chief Justice of Canada. They hold the term for life.

There are at least three different usages of the term “Honourable” - acquired upon achieving a certain office and retained for life; acquired upon achieving a certain office but cease to have it upon leaving office; and infomal usage.

There are two bodies that confer the distinction of “honourables for life” : the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and the Senate.

The Queen’s Privy Council for Canada is the formal advisory body to the Crown at the federal level. Membership in the Privy Council is for life. All Cabinet members are appointed to the Privy Council, so all former and current members of the federal Cabinet are “honourables for life”.

Senators used to be appointed for life, so they were “honourables for life.” They’re now appointed to age 75, but seem to have clung to the “honourable for life.”

As for the “honourables during office,” these are mainly provincial cabinet members and judges. There is no equivalent to the Queen’s Privy Council at the provincial level, with lifetime membership. Membership in the Provincial Cabinets confers “honourable”, but since there is no life membership, upon leaving provincial Cabinet one loses the “honourable.”

That same rule normally applies to most judges: “honourable during office”, but they stop using it upon retirement.

Finally, there’s the informal one, grounded in parliamentary practice. By convention datng back to the British Parliament, individual Senators, Members of Parliament, and Members of the provincial Legislative Assemblies are not referred to by name in the chamber, but by some circumlocution, such as “the Honourable Member for Dog River”. M.P.s and M.L.A.s are not addressed as “honourable” outside the chamber, unlike Senators.