Legal Dictionary

council

Legal Definition of council

Noun

  1. A formal group of experts brought together on a regular basis to debate matters within that sphere of expertise, and with advisory powers to government.

    Example: Canada has a 'Standards Council of Canada" which debates and proposes standards policies and is able to make recommendations to the government of Canada. It can be contrasted with a commission which, although also a body of experts, is typically given regulatory powers in addition to a role as advisor to the government.

Definition of council

Etymology

    From Old English, from Old French, from Latin concilium

Pronunciation

Noun

council (plural councils)

  1. A committee that leads or governs (e.g. city council, student council)
  2. discussion or deliberation

Further reading

A Council is a type of committee that is usually intended to lead or govern. Councils often serve several different functions.

In British culture, a municipality is often referred to as simply the Council without any further attempt by the speaker at making a size or scale designation, as in Council house. It is assumed the listener will already know the specific meaning of the word without further guidance.

Legislative Council

A Legislative Council is the name given to the legislatures, or one of the chambers of the legislature of many nations and colonies.

A member of the Legislative Council is commonly referred to as an MLC.

References:

  1. Wiktionary. Published under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.



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