Letters Patent - Usage

Usage

Letters patent are a form of open or public proclamation and a vestigial exercise of extra-parliamentary power by a monarch or president. Prior to the establishment of parliament, the monarch ruled absolutely by the issuing of his personal written orders, open or closed.

They can thus be contrasted with the Act of Parliament, which is in effect a written order by parliament, approved by the monarch whose signature gives it force. No explicit government approval is contained within letters patent, only the seal or signature of the monarch.

Clearly today parliament tolerates only a very narrow exercise of the royal prerogative by issuance of letters patent, and such documents are issued with prior informal government approval, or indeed are now generated by government itself with the monarch's seal affixed as a mere formality. In their original form they were simply written instructions or orders from the king, whose order was law, which were made public to re-inforce their effect.

For the sake of good governance it is clearly of little use if the king appoints a person to a position of authority if he does not at the same time inform those over whom such authority is to be exercised of the validity of the appointment. Litterae in Latin meant "that which is written" or "writing", in the sense of letters of the alphabet placed together in meaningful sequence on a writing surface, not a specific format of composition as the modern word "letter" suggests. Thus letters patent does not equate to an open letter but rather to any form of document, deed, contract, letter, despatch, edict, decree, epistle etc. made public. A record of all the letters patent issued by English monarchs since 1202 is contained in the Patent Rolls, part of the state archives of Great Britain.