Orders in Council in the context of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council

The Privy Council, formally His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, is a formal body of advisers to the sovereign of the United Kingdom. Its members, known as privy counsellors, are mainly senior politicians who are current or former members of either the House of Commons or the House of Lords.

The Privy Council formally advises the sovereign on the exercise of the royal prerogative. The King-in-Council issues executive instruments known as Orders in Council. The Privy Council also holds the delegated authority to issue Orders of Council, mostly used to regulate certain public institutions. It advises the sovereign on the issuing of royal charters, which are used to grant special status to incorporated bodies, and city or borough status to local authorities. Otherwise, the Privy Council's powers have now been largely reserved to its executive committee, the Cabinet of the United Kingdom, which serves as the senior decision-making body of the government. The council is administratively headed by the Lord President of the Council who is a member of the cabinet, and appointed on the advice of the Prime Minister.

The constitution of New Zealand is the sum of laws and principles that determine the political governance of New Zealand. Unlike many other nations, New Zealand has no single constitutional document. It is an uncodified constitution, sometimes referred to as an "unwritten constitution", although the New Zealand constitution is in fact an amalgamation of written and unwritten sources. The Constitution Act 1986 has a central role, alongside a collection of other statutes, orders in Council, letters patent, decisions of the courts, principles of the Treaty of Waitangi, and unwritten traditions and conventions. There is no technical difference between ordinary statutes and law considered "constitutional law"; no law is accorded higher status. In most cases the New Zealand Parliament can perform "constitutional reform" simply by passing acts of Parliament, and thus has the power to change or abolish elements of the constitution. There are some exceptions to this though – the Electoral Act 1993 requires certain provisions can only be amended following a referendum.

After decades of self-governance, New Zealand gained full statutory independence from Britain in 1947. It is a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary democracy. The monarch of New Zealand is the head of state – represented in the Realm of New Zealand by the governor-general – and is the source of executive, judicial and legislative power, although effective power is in the hands of ministers drawn from the democratically elected New Zealand House of Representatives. This system is based on the "Westminster model", although that term is increasingly inapt given constitutional developments particular to New Zealand. For instance, New Zealand introduced a unicameral system within a decade of its statutory independence.

The Special Constables Act 1923 (13 & 14 Geo. 5. c. 11); long title An Act to make perpetual, subject to an amendment, the Special Constables Act, 1914; to provide for the employment of special constables in connection with Naval, Military and Air Force yards and stations; and to remove certain limitations on the appointment of special constables in Scotland. was a British act of Parliament passed in 1923. It made permanent an earlier act on special constables passed in 1914. Words and sections from the Act were repealed by the Police (Scotland) Act 1956 and the Police Act 1964 and – though it has not been repealed in its entirety – none of its Sections are now in effect.

Its section 1 effectively repealed the phrase "during the present war" from the Special Constables Act 1914 and the reference to that act in the First Schedule to the War Emergency Laws (Continuance) Act, 1920, though in both respects it exempted Northern Ireland. Its Section 2 set up a procedure whereby any Orders in Council made under the 1914 Act as modified by the 1923 Act would be put before "both Houses of Parliament as soon as may be after it is made". A member of either House then had 21 sitting days after that date to lay an address before the Crown for the repeal of any regulations made by that Order in Council. Such regulations would be made void "without prejudice to the validity of any proceedings which may in the meantime have been taken thereunder or to the making of any new regulations provided that Orders in Council under the said Act shall not be deemed to be statutory rules within the meaning of section one of the Rules Publication Act, 1893."