SOVEREIGN. A person, body, or state in which independent and supreme authority is vested.
A chief ruler with supreme power ; a king or other ruler with limited power.
The term is used to expreis, not merely the chief ruler or executive, but the state itself as an entity in which is vested the at tributes of sovereignty. Thus it is usual to speak of the United States or one of the states as the sovereign.
The sovereign, whether the term be used with respect to a state or to the chief ruler of one, is accorded an immunity from suit in courts of justice. This doctrine obtains both in England and in this country.
An action is not maintainable against a foreign sovereign ; 44 L. T. Rep. N. S. 199; [1894] 1 Q. B. 149; 2 II. L. Cas. 1. Courts of England will take judicial notice of the sta tus of a foreign sovereign and will not take jurisdiction over him, unless he voluntarily submits to it ; [1894] 1 Q. B. 149. This doc trine is applied in this country; Hatch v. Baez, 7 Hun (N. Y.) 596 ; Sharp's Rifle Mfg. Co. v. Rowan, 34 Conn. 329, 91 Am. Dec. 728. A state cannot sue the United States with out its consent ; Kansas v. U. S., 204 U. S. 331, 27 Sup. Ct. 388, 51 L. Ed. 510.
"A sovereign is exempt from suit, not be cause of any formal conception or obsolete theory, but on the logical and practical ground that there can be no legal right against the authority which makes the law on which the right depends ;" and a territory of the United States, while not sovereign in the full sense of the word, is such so far as exemption from suit is concerned, because it may originate and change at will the law of contract and property, from which persons within the ju risdiction derive their rights; Kawananakoa v. Polyblauk, 205 U. S. 349, 27 Sup. Ct. 526, 51 L. Ed. 834.
A sovereign is not subject to the jurisdic tion of another country, though traveling there under an assumed name; [1894] 1 Q. B 149 ; he may consent to the jurisdiction, or he may himself bring suit; L. R. 2 Ch. 582; and if he sues, he submits to whatever is in cident to that proceeding ; 3 Y. & C. 594.
It is a general rule that the sovereign can not be sued in his own court without his con sent, and this was so from the days of Brae ton, nor could a feudal lord; 3 Holdsw. Hist.
E. L. 311; and hence no direct judgment can be rendered against him therein for costs, ex cept in the manner and on the condition he has prescribed; State v. Lazarus, 40 La. Ann. 856, 5 South. 289; The Antelope, 12 Wheat. (U. S.) 549, 6 L. Ed. 723; U. S. v. Ringgold, 8 Pet. (U. S.) 163, 8 L. Ed. 899. And in 2 St. Tr. 320, when counsel for the king of Spain asked for costs, Lyndhurst, C., said : "We will not disparage the dignity of the king of Spain by giving him costs." While a sovereign is thus exempt from being made defendant in a suit, he may himself submit to the jurisdiction of a domestic or foreign court by bringing suit. While a foreign sovereign may sue to enforce a juristic right, it is otherwise where it seeks aid in maintaining its authority; Moore, Act of State 148.
A foreign sovereign can bring a civil suit in the courts of the United States; King of Spain v. Oliver, 2 Wash. C. C. 431, Fed. Cas. No. 7,814; The Sapphire, 11 Wall. (U. S.) 164, 20 L. Ed. 127, where many cases are cited ; and such a suit does not abate by a change in the person of the sovereign, as the change may be suggested on the record; id. And a suit on behalf of a sovereign may be insti tuted by his proper official representative in charge of the business. There is no such rule as that the monarch or other titular head of a foreign state is the only person who can sue in respect to the public property or inter est of that state; [1902] A. C. 524, where it was held that the Spanish minister of marine for the time being could sue a Scottish ship building company for damages for non-de livery of a warship, under a contract which was executed by his predecessor in ofqce, on behalf of the Spanish government. When a sovereign waives his immunity so far as to become a suitor, he subjects himself to some extent to judicial control. The principle is said to be that the sovereign who brings suit would seem to submit to the jurisdiction of the court as though he were an individual, so far as that no well-recognized prerogative of sovereignty is infringed without hig express consent; 1 Cl. & Fin. 333.