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The Lord Chancellor, formally the Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, is a senior and important functionary in the government of the United Kingdom. He is the second highest ranking of the Great Officers of State, ranking after only the Lord High Steward. The Lord Chancellor is appointed by the Sovereign on the advice of the Prime Minister. Prior to the Union there were separate Lord Chancellors〔The title can be pluralised 'Lord Chancellors' or 'Lords Chancellor'. The former is more common and is used for consistency throughout the article. See Gardner, B., (2001), ''A dictionary of modern legal usage'', Oxford University Press, p. 538.〕 for England and Wales and for Scotland. The Lord Chancellor is a member of the Cabinet and, by law, is responsible for the efficient functioning and independence of the courts. Formerly he was also the presiding officer of the House of Lords, the head of the judiciary in England and Wales, and the presiding judge of the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice, but the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 transferred these roles to the Lord Speaker, the Lord Chief Justice, and the Chancellor of the High Court respectively. The current Lord Chancellor is Michael Gove, who is also Secretary of State for Justice. One of the Lord Chancellor's responsibilities is to act as the custodian of the Great Seal of the Realm. A Lord Keeper of the Great Seal may be appointed instead of a Lord Chancellor. The two offices entail exactly the same duties; the only distinction is in the mode of appointment. Furthermore, the office of Lord Chancellor may be exercised by a committee of individuals known as Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal,〔Great Seal Act 1688, section 1〕 usually when there is a delay between an outgoing Chancellor and his replacement. The seal is then said to be "in commission". Since the 19th century, however, only Lord Chancellors have been appointed, the other offices having fallen into disuse. ==History== The office of Lord Chancellor of England may trace its origins to the Carolingian monarchy, in which a Chancellor acted as the keeper of the royal seal. In England, the office dates at least as far back as the Norman Conquest (1066), and possibly earlier. Some give the first Chancellor of England as Angmendus, in 605. Other sources suggest that the first to appoint a Chancellor was Edward the Confessor, who is said to have adopted the practice of sealing documents instead of personally signing them. A clerk of Edward's, Regenbald, was named "chancellor" in some documents from Edward's reign. In any event, the office has been continuously occupied since the Norman Conquest. The chancellor headed the writing office or chancery. Formerly, the Lord Chancellor was almost always a churchman, as during the Middle Ages the clergy were amongst the few literate men of the realm. The Lord Chancellor performed multiple functions—he was the Keeper of the Great Seal, the chief royal chaplain, and adviser in both spiritual and temporal matters. Thus, the position emerged as one of the most important ones in government. He was only outranked in government by the Justiciar (now obsolete). As one of the King's ministers, the Lord Chancellor attended the ''Curia Regis'' or Royal Court. If a bishop, the Lord Chancellor received a writ of summons; if an ecclesiastic of a lower degree or, if a layman, he attended without any summons. The ''Curia Regis'' would later evolve into Parliament, the Lord Chancellor becoming the prolocutor of its upper house, the House of Lords. As was confirmed by a statute passed during the reign of Henry VIII, a Lord Chancellor could preside over the House of Lords even if not a Lord himself. The Lord Chancellor's judicial duties also evolved through his role in the ''Curia Regis''. Petitions for justice were normally addressed to the King and the ''Curia'', but in 1280, Edward I instructed his justices to examine and deal with petitions themselves as the Court of King's Bench. Important petitions were to be sent to the Lord Chancellor for his decision; the more significant of these were also to be brought to the King's attention. By the reign of Edward III, this chancellery function developed into a separate tribunal for the Lord Chancellor. In this body, which became known as the High Court of Chancery, the Lord Chancellor would determine cases according to fairness (or "equity") instead of according to the strict principles of common law. The Lord Chancellor also became known as the "Keeper of the King's Conscience." Churchmen continued to dominate the Chancellorship until the 16th century. In 1529, after Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, who was Lord Chancellor and Archbishop of York, was dismissed for failing to procure the annulment of Henry VIII's first marriage, laymen tended to be more favoured for appointment to the office. Ecclesiastics made a brief return during the reign of Mary I, but thereafter, almost all Lord Chancellors have been laymen. Lord Shaftesbury (1672–73) was the last Lord Chancellor who was not a lawyer, until the appointment of Chris Grayling in 2012.〔''Equity and the Law of Trusts'', Philip H. Pettit, Oxford University Press, 2012, page 5.〕 Cameron continued his practice of giving the job to non-lawyers by making Michael Gove Lord Chancellor in 2015. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Lord Chancellor」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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