Personalized exemptions for the Queen in private have been written in more than 160 laws since 1967, granting her broad immunity against sectors of British law, ranging from animal welfare to workers ’rights. Dozens extend more immunity to her privately owned portfolio, granting her unique protections as a large landowner.
More than 30 different laws stipulate that police cannot enter the private estates of Balmoral and Sandringham without the Queen’s permission to investigate suspicious crimes, including crimes against wildlife and environmental pollution, a legal immunity granted to any other. private owner of the country.
Police must also get their personal agreement before they can investigate alleged crimes in their private salmon and trout fishing business on the River Dee in Balmoral, where fishermen charge up to £ 630 a day to fish.
Under the long but ill-defined doctrine of sovereign immunity, no criminal and civil proceedings are initiated against the monarch as head of state. But an investigation by The Guardian, based on official documents and analysis of the legislation, reveals the extent to which laws have been drafted or amended to specify immunity for his conduct as a private citizen, along with his privately owned property and assets, and even a privately owned business.
One constitutional expert warned that exemptions undermine the notion that everyone is equal before the law, while another recommended that the monarchy review and simplify exemptions to ensure public transparency.
As a monarch, the queen has a public and a private legal person. The first, Elizabeth II, is the public figure who acts as head of state and owns historical assets such as Buckingham Palace or the royal art collection, which cannot be sold. The second, Elizabeth Windsor, is a private person who can buy and sell investments and assets like any other citizen. Although famous for their royal association, the Sandringham and Balmoral estates are private assets of the Windsor family.
However, unlike other individuals, Elizabeth Windsor has also had exemptions and personalized exemptions written in strips of British law, often in areas where she has private interests or investments.
“There is a clear pattern and they relate largely to the monarch’s economic interests,” said Thomas Adams, an associate professor of law at Oxford University, who examined the Guardian’s findings.
The UK government and Buckingham Palace refused to answer in detail questions about the process by which exemptions were obtained for the Windsor family. Both refused to say whether the queen or her representatives had called for private legal immunity to be incorporated into the laws. A recent Guardian investigation has revealed separately how the monarch has influenced the legislation through an obscure procedure known as the Queen’s consent, in which her lawyers can check the laws that may affect her before parliament can. approve.
“The principles of application of the crown have been established for some time and are widely known,” said Donal McCabe, the Queen’s communications secretary, referring to the legal doctrine that UK law does not generally apply. to the government and the monarchy. He refused to explain the palace’s interpretation of the private immunity clauses. McCabe did not question the existence of the exemptions, nor that their effect was to grant immunity to the queen as owner of private land and owner of a business.
The exemptions that have been granted to the current queen will, in most cases, be transferred to Prince Charles when he becomes king.
Immunity from anti-discrimination laws
The most controversial exemptions prohibit the Queen’s employees from filing complaints of sexual and racial discrimination. Even the most modern anti-discrimination law, the Equality Act of 2010, is designed to not protect employees from the queen.
Other laws contain exemptions that exempt the queen as a private company from having to comply with various laws on workers’ rights, health and safety or pensions. It is wholly or partly exempt from at least four different workers’ pensions laws and is not required to comply with the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1974.
The practice of preventing employees of the Queen from filing discrimination against her home dates back to the late 1960s, when courtiers told ministers that “it was not, in fact, the practice to designate immigrants or foreigners of color “for clerical offices in the royal house. .
Perhaps out of concern that these exemptions may be controversial or unacceptable to the British public, the Queen’s immunity from the anti-discrimination law has been drafted in an opaque manner.
While other clauses unequivocally state that the law “does not affect Her Majesty in private” or does not apply to her private property, her exemption from the Equality Act 2010 is only seen through a statement of a line in an attached explanatory document.
This discreet approach can be seen in laws dating back to the 1970s, when the Queen was exempt from legislation, including the Sex Discrimination Act of 1975. At the time, a Whitehall mandarin described it in a letter to Martin. Charteris, then the queen’s private secretary, as the formulation of an exemption had “substantial merit that does not draw attention to the position of the sovereign.”
Private properties
Thirty-one laws contain Queen’s immunity clauses that prohibit police or environmental inspectors from accessing the Windsor family’s private property unless they first obtain their permission. Sixteen are related to Scotland, where she owns the 24,800-hectare (61,500-acre) Balmoral estate, which has a private trust in her name.
Three laws contain clauses that immunize their private properties against mandatory purchase. In a case that was first reported last year, the Queen’s lawyers secretly pressured her to be immune to parts of a major Scottish law that reduced carbon emissions.
His legal immunity extends even to the Windsor family’s private salmon fishing business in Balmoral. His farm rents fishing rhythms on the River Dee to the public, advertising them “as one of the best fishing grounds in Scotland”.
Illegal fishing is a serious problem in the river: in 2020-21 there were 51 suspected poaching incidents investigated by police and water sheriffs. But in 2013, Scottish ministers used a clause in the Aquaculture and Fisheries Act (Scotland) to clarify that police and water bailiffs were prevented from conducting environmental inspections and enforcement visits. beats without the permission of the queen.
Documents obtained through the Environmental Information Act state: “A provision is made requiring consent to be sought before exercising certain powers of entry into private estates,” and describe the clause as to “defensible given the queen’s position as owner of the salmon fisheries in Her. private capacity”.
Under the Queen’s consent process, Scottish ministers had to provide a copy of the legislation to the Queen’s private lawyers for review before Holyrood could pass the law. A 2013 note drafted to help ministers get their approval, obtained by the Guardian, points to the Queen’s private business interests: “The exercise of these powers could affect Her Majesty’s salmon fishing on the Balmoral estate , although the exercise of these rights would not be possible, carried out without first obtaining the consent of His Majesty ”.
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Dr Craig Prescott, a professor of constitutional law at Bangor University and former director of the Center for Parliament and Public Law at Winchester University, said some of the exemptions ran the risk of opening the monarchy to charges. ‘hypocrisy.
The Prince of Wales has championed the protection of the natural environment for decades, while the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge stand up for the Earthshot Award for solutions to the world’s most pressing environmental challenges.
“If you campaign on the environment or conservation, and it turns out that certain laws related to the environment or conservation, at least animal welfare, don’t apply to your private residences, that doesn’t seem right, “Prescott said,” especially if you are the only private residence in the country to which the law does not apply. “
Tax exemptions
Other Queen’s immunity clauses exempt her from paying taxes or providing information to the bodies that collect them. In the early 1990s, Buckingham Palace admitted that the Queen did not pay taxes on income or capital gains, even for her private interests, and after harsh public criticism agreed to pay some taxes “voluntarily”.
However, since the Blair Prime Minister’s return agreements, the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Senedd have been approving their own tax legislation. Scottish ministers have included the Queen’s immunity clauses in laws passed between 2013 and 2017, which exempt the Queen from a variety of lower taxes levied on other British citizens. It pays no taxes on land purchases, no commissions for landfill removals, and is partially exempt from air travel taxes.
The exemptions inserted in four laws passed by the parliaments of Westminster, Scotland and Wales between 2008 and 2017 stipulate that, in addition to not paying taxes, it is not required to provide information to tax inspectors or official statisticians.
Two Westminster laws in 2008 and 2011 prevent HM Revenue and Customs from requiring it to provide information and is not required to cooperate with the Scottish and Welsh tax authorities established by decentralized legislation in 2014 and 2016.
Reinforcement of protection
In some cases, the purpose of immunity is difficult to understand, such as the exemption from a 2011 law that allows councils to charge bars for selling alcohol after midnight, or a clause proposed in a law on immunity. 1998 banning private …