(A) civil law. The privilege, preeminence, or advantage which one person has over another; thus a person vested with an office, is entitled to all the rights, privileges, prerogatives which belong to it. (B) English law. The royal prerogative is an arbitrary power vested in the executive to do good and not evil. Rutherf. Inst. 279; Co. Litt. 90; Chit. on Prerog.; Bac. Ab. h. t.
Law Dictionary – Alternative Legal Definition
An exclusive or peculiar privilege. The special power, privilege, immunity, or advantage vested In an official person, either generally, or in respect to the things of his office, or in an official body, as a court or legislature. See Attorney General v. Blossom, 1 Wis. 817; Attorney General v. Eau Claire, 37 Wis. 443. In English law. That special pre-eminence which the king (or queen) has over and above all other persons, in right of his (or her) regal dignity. A term used to denote those rights and capacities which the sovereign enjoys alone, in contradistinction to others. 1 BL Comm. 239. Prerogative court. In English law. A court established for the trial of all testamentary causes, where the deceased left bona net abilta within two different dioceses; in which case the probate of wills belonged to the archbishop of the province, by way of special prerogative. And all causes relating to the wills, administrations, or legacies of such persons were originally cognizable herein, before a judge appointed by the archbishop, called the judge of the prerogative court,” from whom an appeal lay to the privy council. 3 Bl. Comm. 66; 8 Steph. Comm. 432. In New Jersey the Surogative court is the court of appeal from ecrees of the orphans’ courts in the several counties of the state. The court is held before the chancellor, under the title of the “ordinary.” Prerogative law. That part of the common law of England which is more particularly applicable to the king. Com. Dig. tit “Ley,” A. Prerogative writs. In English law, the name is given to certain judicial writs issued by the courts only upon proper cause shown, never as a mere matter of right, the theory being that they involve a direct interference by the government with the liberty and property of the subject, and therefore are justified only as an exercise of the extraordinary power (prerogative) of the crown. In America, a theory has sometimes been advanced that these writs should issue only in cases publici jurU and those affecting the sovereignty of the state, or ita franchises or prerogatives, or the liberties of the people. But their issuance is now generally regulated by statute, and the use of the term “prerogative,” in describing them, amounts only to a reference to their origin and history. These writs are the writs of mandamus, procedendo, prohibition, quo warranto, habeas corpus, and certiorari.