Legal Case Summary
Attorney-General v De Keyser’s Royal Hotel [1920] AC 508
Considered the circumstances in which statutes may operate to fetter prerogative powers.
Facts
The claimants, De Keyser’s Royal Hotel, were the owners of a London Hotel that had been used by some members of the armed forces in World War One, and they thus sought reasonable compensation for this occupation under the Defence Act 1842. The defendants, the Government, attempted to reject this claim, asserting that their duty to defend the realm, as per prerogative powers and the Defence of the Realm Act 1914, meant they had no obligation to compensate the claimants.
Issue
Whether the Government’s prerogative powers to protect the realm authorised them to evade statutory responsibilities.
Decision / Outcome
At first instance, the High Court found for the Attorney-General, a verdict which was subsequently overturned by the Court of Appeal and upheld by the House of Lords. The Lords held that the prerogative vested in the Crown and Parliament did not allow for the repossession of property from a citizen, even where it related to the realm’s defence, unless the citizen was appropriately and reasonably compensated. Subsequently, it was ordered that De Keyser’s Royal Hotel receive compensation as per the Defence Act 1842.
Significantly, Lord Dunedin remarked that ‘if the whole ground of something which could be done by the prerogative is covered by the statute it is the statute that rules’. Thus, the Court determined that the statute served to temporarily limit the prerogative power, placing it in abeyance, however that this did not amount to a permanent restriction or abolition of the prerogative.
Updated 19 March 2026
This summary of Attorney-General v De Keyser’s Royal Hotel [1920] AC 508 remains legally accurate. The constitutional principle established in this case — that where a statute covers the same ground as a prerogative power, the Crown must act under the statute and the prerogative is placed in abeyance — continues to be good law and is regularly applied by the courts.
The principle has been affirmed and developed in subsequent significant cases, most notably R v Secretary of State for the Home Department, ex parte Fire Brigades Union [1995] 2 AC 513 and R (Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union [2017] UKSC 5, in which the Supreme Court applied and discussed the De Keyser principle in the context of Brexit. Students should be aware of those later authorities, which provide important modern context for the principle described in this article. No statutory changes have rendered the case summary inaccurate.
