The Right Honourable

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The Right Honourable (abbreviated "The Rt Hon." or "The Right Hon.") is an honorific prefix which is traditionally applied to certain classes of people in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, other Commonwealth Realms, and elsewhere. The title is also applied to the President of the Council of State of the Republic of Turkey.

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[edit] Entitlement

People entitled to the prefix in a personal capacity are:

In order to differentiate peers who are Privy Councillors from those who are not, sometimes, the suffix PC is added to the title.

In addition, some people are entitled to the prefix in an official capacity, i.e. the prefix is added to the name of the office, but not the name of the person:

All other Lords Mayor are "The Right Worshipful", other Lords Provost do not use an honorific.

[edit] Corporate entities

The prefix is also added to the name of various corporate entities, e.g.:

  • The Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal (of the United Kingdom &c.) in Parliament Assembled (the House of Lords);
  • The Right Honourable the Knights, Citizens and Burgesses (now usually the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom &c.) in Parliament Assembled (the House of Commons); and
  • The Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty (the Board of Admiralty)
  • The Right Honourable the Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council appointed for the consideration of all matters relating to Trade and Foreign Plantations (the Board of Trade)

See also the corporate use of "Most Honourable," as in "The Lords of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council" (the Privy Council).

[edit] Use of the honorific

The honorific is normally used only on the front of envelopes and other written documents: for example, The Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP is otherwise referred to simply as "Mr Blair".

In the House of Commons, members refer to each other as "the honourable member for ..." or "the right honourable member for ..." depending upon whether or not they are Privy Councillors. However the title "the honourable member" is only a parliamentary term and not used outside the House.

When a married woman holds this style, she uses her own given name in her style. So, when Margaret Thatcher was made a Privy Counsellor, her formal style changed from "Mrs Denis Thatcher" to "The Right Honourable Margaret Thatcher".

[edit] Outside the United Kingdom

Generally within the Commonwealth, ministers and judges are The Honourable unless they are appointed to the Privy Council of the United Kingdom, in which case they are The Right Honourable. Such persons generally include Prime Ministers and judges of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand, and several other Commonwealth prime ministers.

[edit] Australia

In Australia some Premiers of the Australian colonies in the 19th century were appointed members of the UK Privy Council and were thus entitled to be called The Right Honourable. After Federation in 1901, the Governor-General, the Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, the Prime Minister and some other senior ministers held the title. There has never been an Australian Privy Council.

In 1972 Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam declined appointment to the Privy Council, but the practice was resumed by Malcolm Fraser in 1975. In 1983 Bob Hawke declined the appointment, and the appointment of Australians to the Privy Council was abolished shortly thereafter. The last Governor-General to be entitled to the style was Sir Ninian Stephen. The last politician to be entitled to the style was Ian Sinclair who retired in 1998.

The only living Australians holding the title The Right Honourable for life are:

  • Doug Anthony, former Deputy Prime Minister
  • Sir Zelman Cowen, former Governor-General
  • Malcolm Fraser, former Prime Minister
  • Ian Sinclair, former Leader of the National Party and Speaker of the House of Representatives
  • Sir Ninian Stephen, former Governor-General
  • Reginald Withers, former Senator, Minister, and Lord Mayor of Perth.

The Lord Mayors of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and Hobart are styled The Right Honourable, but the style (which has no connection with the Privy Council) attaches to the title of Lord Mayor, and not to their names, and is relinquished upon leaving office. Reginald Withers holds the title Right Honourable for life because he was a member of the Privy Council before he was elected Lord Mayor of Perth.

[edit] Canada

In Canada, members of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada receive the honorific The Honourable, with only the occupants of the most senior public offices being made The Right Honourable, as they used to be appointed to the British Privy Council.

L'Honorable and le Très Honorable are used in French by the federal government, but the Office québécois de la langue française (the Quebec government body setting standards for the French language) considers them improper loan expressions and advises the use of Monsieur and Madame (Mr. and Ms.) instead.

The following public servants are awarded the style The Right Honourable for life:

(Governors General also use the style His/Her Excellency during their term of office.)

Several prominent Canadians (mostly politicians) have become members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom and have thus been entitled to use the title Right Honourable, either because of their services in Britain (e.g. serving as envoys to London) or as members of the Imperial War Cabinet or due to their prominence in the Canadian Cabinet. These include:

1 - As Prime Minister.

2 - Tupper was appointed when he was no longer Prime Minister and St. Laurent was appointed when he was a cabinet minister under Mackenzie King.

3 - Massey became Governor General over a decade later. He was made "Right Honourable" while serving as Canada's High Commissioner to London.

4 - As Chief Justice of Canada

5 - As Governor General of Canada.

6 - Duff did not become Chief Justice until 1933.

Canadian appointments to the British Privy Council were ended by the government of Lester Pearson. Since then, the style may be granted for life only by the Governor General to eminent Canadians who have not held any of the offices that would otherwise entitle them to the style. It has been granted to the following individuals:

[edit] Ireland

Members of the Privy Council of Ireland were entitled to be addressed as The Right Honourable until the Privy Council was abolished with the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922; nevertheless, the Lord Mayor of Dublin, like his counterparts in the United Kingdom, retained the usage of the honorific after this time as a result of a separate conferring of the title by law; in 2001 the honorific was removed as a consequence of local government law reform. The Lord Mayor of Cork has never been entitled to the title.

The remaining members of the Privy Council of Northern Ireland are entitled to be styled The Right Honourable.

[edit] New Zealand

In New Zealand, the Prime Minister and some other senior cabinet ministers have customarily been appointed to the British Privy Council and styled The Right Honourable. The current Prime Minister, Helen Clark, has not recommended any new Privy Counsellors.

At present, there are only two Privy Counsellors in the New Zealand Parliament: Helen Clark, appointed in 1990, and Winston Peters, appointed in 1996. Privy Counsellors recently retired include the former Speaker of the House, Jonathan Hunt, and former Prime Minister Jenny Shipley (appointed upon becoming Prime Minister in 1997). Senior Judges are also often appointed as Privy Counsellors.

[edit] The Republic of Turkey

The President of the Council of State of the Republic of Turkey, is also styled with the prefix "The Right Honourable" [[1]].

The Council of State of the Turkish State was transformed from the "Supreme Council for Judicial Regulations (Meclis-i Vala-i Ahkam-ı Adliye)" of the Imperial Ottoman State. The Supreme Council was established during the reign of His Imperial Majesty, Grand Sultan Mahmut the Second, and developed after the declaration of the "Noble Edict of the Rose Garden (Gülhane Hatt-ı Hümayunu – Tanzimat Fermanı)" but later divided, according to the duties conferred upon them, into two councils following the Crimean War. One of those councils was called the "Supreme Council of the Reforms (Meclis-i Ali-i Tanzimat)", while the other maintained the name of the "Supreme Council for Judicial Regulations". The former council was responsible for drafting legislation related to the clauses of the "Reform Orders (Islahat Fermanı)", while the latter was to be involved with those matters implied by its name.

Acting upon the unrest in the Ottoman Empire during the last year of the reign of His Imperial Majesty Sultan Grand Abdulmecit, the British Ambassador in İstanbul advised the "Sublime Port (Bab-ı Âli)" with a memorandum about his recommendations on the application of the "Reform Orders". In the memorandum he was proposing the establishment of a new council having both advisory and executive duties as well as judicial functions but primarily responsible for the supervision of the implementation of reforms. This proposal was taken seriously into consideration by the Sublime Port, and hence the two bodies were merged in 1861. Seven years later, it was split up again into two councils for the second time, the first council was called the "Council of State (Şura-yı Devlet)" and the second the "Board of Judicial Regulations".


[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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