Queen-in-Council Information & Queen-in-Council Links at HealthHaven.com

The Queen-in-Council (during the reign of a male monarch, King-in-Council) is, in each of the Commonwealth realms, the technical term of constitutional law that refers to the exercise of executive authority, denoting the monarch acting by and with the advice and consent of his or her privy council (in the United Kingdom or Canada) or executive council (in most other Commonwealth realms); casually, this is referred to as simply the government of [jurisdiction], though this phrase may mean more than one thing in certain areas. In practice, the Queen-in-Council almost always gives formal effect to decisions made by the Cabinet, a subcommittee of the privy or executive council that includes the senior Ministers of the Crown, and meets often without the Queen or her local representative. An order made by the Queen-in-Council is known as an Order-in-Council, and such actions are subject to judicial review.^[1]

In Commonwealth realms other than the United Kingdom, and some Crown Dependencies, the Queen's powers and functions are delegated to the Governor-General, Lieutenant-Governor, or Governor. In these cases, the Queen-in-Council is replaced by a Governor-General-in-Council, Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council, or Governor-in-Council, respectively.