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Police have been banned from searching the queen’s private property for stolen or looted artifacts after ministers granted her a personal exemption from a law protecting the world’s cultural property, The Guardian can reveal.
Buckingham Palace and the government refuse to say why it was deemed necessary in 2017 to grant the Queen an exemption preventing police from searching Balmoral and Sandringham.
A spokesperson for the Queen dismissed any suggestion that the stolen or looted artifacts were being held on the monarch’s private property.
The Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), which gave the monarch the special dispensation, declined to say whether it had been proposed by royal assistants or ministers. The DCMS also keeps a series of emails secret that may shed light on why the Queen was granted immunity from the law.
However, documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act appear to suggest that the department used opaque language in a parliamentary bill that obscured the purpose of the exemption from the public.
The documents were requested by The Guardian as part of an ongoing investigation into Queen’s consent, an obscure parliamentary mechanism that gives the monarch advanced insight into proposed laws, including those affecting public functions, private property, and personal interests.
In February, The Guardian published documents showing how the Queen had used the process to secretly pressure ministers to change the bills. In one case, a bill was amended to hide his “shameful” private wealth from the public, following the intervention of his private attorney.
Since then, more than 60,000 people have signed a petition calling for an investigation into the queen’s “troubling and undemocratic ability to influence the government behind closed doors.”
The latest disclosure relates to the Cultural Property (Armed Conflict) Law, a 2017 law that seeks to prevent the destruction of cultural heritage, such as monuments, archaeological sites, works of art, and important books, in future wars.
The decision to grant him an exemption from the law was expressed privately in a letter sent to Buckingham Palace in February 2016 from a private secretary who worked for then-secretary for culture, John Whittingdale.
The letter follows the protocols of the arcane queen’s consent mechanism, which requires ministers to request her permission to allow parliament to proceed with legislation affecting her.
The private secretary explained that the bill contains “measures that establish new powers to enter the land and thereby affect the interests of the crown.”
Although the law refers primarily to the preservation and protection of cultural property in war zones, some of it relates to stolen or looted artifacts that have been trafficked out of those countries.
It made the purchase or sale of these stolen or looted artifacts a crime punishable by up to seven years in prison. The police have the power to search the premises if it is suspected that they are being used to store illegally obtained artifacts.
Whittingdale’s private secretary, who was not named, stated that the bill had been carefully worded when it came to the Queen’s special exemption. “Separately, we wish to ensure that the powers of part 4 of the bill cannot be exercised in relation to Her Majesty’s private property,” the official wrote.
Part 4 of the bill gave the police powers to search properties where looted artifacts can be kept and confiscate them. The official continued: “In order to achieve this result in the best way, we consider that the wording of clause 35 achieves the optimal balance between clarity and propriety.”
“While we could only refer to His Majesty’s private property, the broader application of ‘in his private capacity’ ensures that the entire bill is not applied and avoids any implication that some aspects of it could (which it could happen if we refer only to ‘private property’), “wrote the official, adding:” We understand that the approach we have taken is unprecedented. “
When passed in 2017, the bill contained the exemption in a clause that referred to “His Majesty in his private capacity.”
A DCMS spokesperson said: “It is incorrect to suggest that there was a direct attempt to conceal the purpose of any clause. It is common for legislation to include an exception for Her Majesty the Queen in her private capacity. “
A spokesman for the palace said: “The royal house can be consulted on the bills to ensure technical precision and consistency in the application of the bill to the crown, a complex legal principle that is governed by statute and law. customary law. This process does not change the nature of such a bill. “
Whittingdale’s private secretary’s letter makes it clear that the exemption applies only to the Queen and her private estates. The police can still search for property within the crown estate, for example, a large strip of land that historically belonged to English monarchs and now belongs to the nation. A significant proportion of their earnings are used to finance the monarchy.
The Cultural Property Law is the result of an international push to clamp down on the destruction of cultural heritage during conflicts. Following the destruction of artistic works by the Nazis during World War II, the United Nations drafted an international treaty in 1954 to prevent the destruction of cultural heritage in future armed conflicts. It only became part of British law when the UK government passed the 2017 law.
