The Crown

The Crown is a political concept used in some Commonwealth realms. Depending on the context used, it generally refers to the entirety of the state (or in federal realms, the relevant level of government in that state), the executive government specifically or only to the monarch and their direct representatives.^[1]

The term can be used to refer to the rule of law; or to the functions of executive (the Crown-in-council), legislative (the Crown-in-parliament), and judicial (the Crown on the bench) governance and the civil service.^[2]

The concept of the Crown as a corporation sole developed first in the Kingdom of England as a separation of the physical crown and property of the kingdom from the person and personal property of the monarch. It spread through English and later British colonisation and developed into an imperial crown, which rooted it in the legal lexicon of all 15 Commonwealth realms, their various dependencies, and states in free association with them. Further evolution in the 20th century, whereby colonies became sovereign states caused divergence of the institution in the now former colonies, although still embodied in a single monarch. As a political concept or set of political concepts, the Crown should not to be confused with any physical crown, such as those of the British regalia.^[3]

The term is also found in various expressions such as Crown land, which some countries refer to as public land or state land; as well as in some offices, such as minister of the Crown, Crown attorney, and Crown prosecutor.