The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) is the highest court of appeal for the Crown Dependencies, the British Overseas Territories, some Commonwealth countries and a few institutions in the United Kingdom.

Established on 14 August 1833 to hear appeals formerly heard by the King-in-Council,[2] the Privy Council formerly acted as the court of last resort for the entire British Empire, other than for the United Kingdom itself.

[5] In particular, the Appeals Committee had to hear cases arising from a variety of different legal systems in the colonies, such as Hindu law, with which its members were unfamiliar.

Currently, eleven Commonwealth countries outside of the United Kingdom retain Privy Council appeals, in addition to various British and New Zealand territories.

c. 86) and the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876 all archbishops and bishops of the Church of England became eligible to be members of the Judicial Committee.

Prior to the coming into force of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, the Privy Council was the court of last resort for devolution issues.

[11] The Judicial Committee holds jurisdiction in appeals from the following 32 jurisdictions (including eleven independent nations): Judicial appeal of final resort has been assumed by other bodies in some current and former Commonwealth countries: The following countries or territories did not retain the jurisdiction of the Judicial Committee at the time of independence or of the transfer of sovereignty from the United Kingdom: Burma (1948), Israel (1948), Somaliland (1960), Cyprus (1960), Zanzibar (1963), Zambia (1964), Rhodesia (1965), South Yemen (1967), Swaziland (1968), Papua New Guinea (1975), Seychelles (1976), Solomon Islands (1978), Vanuatu (1980), Hong Kong (1997).

[3] On 1 October 2009, the Judicial Committee moved to the former Middlesex Guildhall building, which had been refurbished in 2007 to provide a home for both the JCPC and the newly created Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.

Many of those Commonwealth countries that became republics, or which had indigenous monarchies, preserved the Judicial Committee's jurisdiction by agreement with the United Kingdom.

The Balfour Declaration of 1926, while not considered to be lex scripta, severely limited the conditions under which the Judicial Committee might hear cases:[41] From these discussions it was clear that it was no part of the policy of His Majesty's Government in Great Britain that questions affecting judicial appeals should be determined otherwise than in accordance with the wishes of the part of the Empire primarily affectedIn 1901, the Constitution of Australia limited appeals from the new federal High Court of Australia to the Privy Council, by prohibiting appeals on constitutional matters unless leave is granted by the High Court on inter se questions.

The Australian Constitution retains the provision allowing the High Court of Australia to permit appeals to the Privy Council on inter se questions.

In 1949, all appeals to the Privy Council were abolished, but prior to this, there were several factors that served to limit the effectiveness of measures to reduce appeals: Nadan, together with the King–Byng Affair, was a major irritant for Canada and provoked the discussion at the 1926 Imperial Conference which led to the Balfour Declaration, which declared the United Kingdom and the dominions to be ... autonomous Communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations.With that Declaration and its statutory confirmation in the Statute of Westminster 1931 (Imp, 22–23 Geo 5, c.4)[49] the impediment to abolishing appeals to the Privy Council, whether or not it had been legitimate, was comprehensively removed.

[51] The JCPC played a controversial role in the evolution of Canadian federalism in that, whereas some Fathers of Confederation in negotiating the union of the British North American colonies against the backdrop of the American Civil War wished to ensure a strong central government vis-à-vis relatively weak provinces, appeals to the JCPC in constitutional matters progressively shifted the balance in favour of the provinces.

Some debate between member countries and also the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council[54][55] had repeatedly delayed the court's date of inauguration.

The Co-operative Republic of Guyana also enacted local legislation allowing the CCJ to have jurisdiction over their sovereign final court of appeals system.

As it stands, a few other CARICOM states appear to be ready for the abolition of appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the immediate future.

[57] Caribbean governments have been coming under increased pressure from their electorates[58] to devise ways to override previous rulings by the JCPC such as Pratt v A-G (Jamaica, 1993),[59] R v Hughes (Saint Lucia, 2002), Fox v R (Saint Kitts and Nevis, 2002), Reyes v R (2002, Belize), Boyce v R (Barbados, 2004), and Matthew v S (Trinidad and Tobago, 2004), all of which are Privy Council judgments concerning the death penalty in the Caribbean region.

[60][61][62] The then President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, has voiced displeasure with Caribbean and other Commonwealth countries continuing to rely on the British JCPC.

During an interview Lord Phillips was quoted by the Financial Times as saying that "'in an ideal world' Commonwealth countries—including those in the Caribbean—would stop using the Privy Council and set up their own final courts of appeal instead".

[63] On 18 December 2006, the Judicial Committee made history when for the first time in more than 170 years it ventured outside London, holding a five-day sitting in the Bahamas.

On the latter occasion, Lords Hope, Rodger, Walker, and Mance, and Sir Christopher Rose, heard several cases.

[69] Previously, the Privy Council had ruled in Ibralebbe v The Queen that it remained the highest court of appeal in Ceylon notwithstanding the country's independence as a dominion in 1948.

Hong Kong's court system changed following the transfer of sovereignty from the United Kingdom to China on 1 July 1997, with the Court of Final Appeal serving as the highest judicial authority of the Special Administrative Region (SAR), and (pursuant to Article 158 of the Basic Law, the constitutional instrument of the SAR) the power of final interpretation vested not in the Court of Final Appeal of Hong Kong but in the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of China, a legislative body.

[72][73] Pursuant to Article 158 of the Basic Law, the power of final interpretation of the Basic Law is vested not in the Court of Final Appeal of Hong Kong but in the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of China, which, unlike the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, is a political body rather than an independent and impartial tribunal of last resort.

[74] In Moore v Attorney-General of the Irish Free State[75] the right of the Oireachtas to abolish appeals to the Privy Council was challenged as a violation of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty.

[76] The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council itself ruled that the Irish Free State Government had that right under the Statute of Westminster 1931 (Imp.).

The Privy Council's respect for local decisions was noted by Lord Brightman in 1985 in regard to the possible adoption of a New Zealand decision, in the case of Archer v. Cutler (1980), as a precedent, where he stated that:If Archer v. Cutler is properly to be regarded as a decision based on considerations peculiar to New Zealand, it is highly improbable that their Lordships would think it right to impose their own interpretation of the law, thereby contradicting the unanimous conclusions of the High Court and the Court of Appeal of New Zealand on a matter of local significance.

If, however, the principle of Archer v. Cutler, if it be correct, must be regarded as having general application throughout all jurisdictions based on the common law, because it does not depend on local considerations, their Lordships could not properly treat the unanimous view of the courts of New Zealand as being necessarily decisive.

In 2008, Prime Minister John Key ruled out any abolition of the Supreme Court and return to the Privy Council.

In this case, Mohamed Yasin bin Hussein, who was 19 at the time of the murder, was sentenced to death by the High Court for murdering and raping a 58-year-old woman named Poon Sai Imm, while his 25-year-old accomplice Harun bin Ripin went to ransack the elderly woman's house for items to rob (Harun, who also stood trial for murder together with Yasin, was instead sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment and received 12 strokes of the cane for a lesser charge of robbery at night).