PROCLAMATION, a public notice given by the sovereign to his subjects. The power of issuing proclamations is part of the prerogative of royalty as the fountain of justice. They sometimes consist of an authoritative announcement of some matter of state, or act of the executive government affecting the duties and obligations of subjects. The demise of the crown, and accession of a new sovereign, a declaration of war, and the issue of new coin, are all occasions on which a royal proclamation is issued. A procla mation may also be issued to declare the intention of the crown to exercise some preroga tive or enforce some law which has for a long time been dormant or suspended. In time of war, the crown by a proclamation may lay an embargo on shipping, and order the ports to be shut. But the most usual class of proclamations are admonitory notices for the prevention of offenses, consisting of formal declarations of existing laws and penal ties, and of the intention to enforce them; such as the proclamation against vice and immorality, appointed to be read at the opening of all courts of quarter sessions in Eng land.
Proclamations are only binding when they do not contradict existing laws, or tend to establish new ones, but only enforce the execution of those which are already in being, in such manner as the sovereign judges necessary. A proclamation must be under the great seal. Statute 31 Henry VIII. c. 8 declared that the king's proclamations should be as binding as acts of parliament ; an enactment which, while it subsisted, made an entire revolution in the government; but was repealed by 1 Edw. VI. c. 12. In later times, it was attempted to be maintained by the crown lawyers that the king might suspend or dispense with an existing law by proclamation; a power, however, which act 1 Will. and Mary c. 2 declared not to exist.