Duchy of Cornwall - Legal Status and Additional Rights

Legal Status and Additional Rights

Both the Duchy of Cornwall and the Duchy of Lancaster—since 1399 held by the monarch in a personal capacity—have special legal rights not available to other landed estates: for example, the rules on bona vacantia, the right to ownerless property, operate in favour of the holders of the duchies rather than the Crown, such that the property of anyone who dies in the county of Cornwall without a will or identifiable heirs, and assets belonging to dissolved companies whose registered office was in Cornwall, pass to the duchy. In 2007, £130,000 was realised from the right of bona vacantia. The duke owns freehold about three-fifths of the Cornish foreshore and the 'fundus', or bed, of navigable rivers and has right of wreck on all ships wrecked on Cornish shores, including those afloat offshore, and also to "Royal fish", i.e. whales, porpoises, and sturgeon. The Duchy of Cornwall is the Harbour Authority for St Mary's Harbour. There are separate attorneys-general for the duchies. The High Sheriff of Cornwall is appointed by the Duke of Cornwall, not the monarch, in contrast to the other counties of England and Wales. The duke had a ceremonial role in summoning the Cornish Stannary Parliament.

In Bruton v. ICO the first tier tribunal found that the duchy was a public authority for the purposes of the Environmental Information Regulations 2004. The Guardian newspaper reported in 2011 that, since 2005, the Prince of Wales has been asked to give his consent to a number of draft bills on matters ranging from town planning to gambling, because it could affect the interests of the Duchy of Cornwall. Andrew George, Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament for St Ives, commented that "The duchy asserts that it is merely a private estate. Most people will be astonished to learn that it appears to have effective powers of veto over the government." Writing in the Guardian, lawyer David Gollancz commented that: "The duchy exercises a unique range of legal powers, which elsewhere are reserved for the crown.... It seems anomalous, and worrying, that such a huge estate, created and conferred by law and exercising significant legal powers, should be able to escape public scrutiny by calling itself a private estate." The requirement for the Prince of Wales to give consent to draft bills that could affect the interests of the Duchy of Cornwall is not a new power granted to Prince Charles, but a centuries-old parliamentary practice that involved the same requirement for consent being conferred on previous Dukes of Cornwall (see Prince's Consent).

For some Cornish activists, Cornwall itself is described, de jure, as a duchy as opposed to an ordinary county, and the duchy estates are distinguished from the duchy itself, having themselves been annexed and united to "the aforesaid duchy". The Royal Commission on the Constitution in 1973 recommended that Cornwall be officially referred to as "the duchy" on what it described as "appropriate occasions" given the nature of the county's "special relationship" with the Crown. The designation is sometimes found used informally in respect of the county as whole.

Historically all justices of the Assizes who visited Cornwall were also permanent members of the Prince's Council which oversees the Duchy of Cornwall and advises the Duke. There are on record at least three instances in which the prince over-ruled the king by instructing his officials to ignore or disobey orders issued to them by the King's Chancery.