Sovereign immunity

Sovereign immunity, or crown immunity, is a legal doctrine by which the sovereign or state cannot commit a legal wrong and is immune from civil suit or criminal prosecution. This principle is commonly expressed by the popular legal maxim "rex non potest peccare," meaning "the king can do no wrong."

In constitutional monarchies the sovereign is the historical origin of the authority which creates the courts. Thus the courts had no power to compel the sovereign to be bound by the courts, as they were created by the sovereign for the protection of his or her subjects.

By country

Australia

There is no automatic Crown immunity in Australia and the Australian Constitution does not establish a state of unfettered immunity of the Crown in respect of the States and the Commonwealth. The Australian Constitution establishes items which the States and the Commonwealth legislate on independently of each other, in practice resulting in the States legislating on some things and the Commonwealth legislating on others. In some circumstances this can create ambiguity as to the applicability of legislation where there is no clearly established Crown immunity. The Australian Constitution does however, in Section 109, describe how inconsistency between State and Commonwealth law is to be resolved. Based on this, depending on the context of application and whether a particular statute infringes on the executive powers of the State or the Commonwealth the Crown may or may not be immune from any particular statute.