British secrecy jurisdictions and the Privy Council
Tax Justice Network, October 2013, Updated February 2020
The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, a legacy from the British Empire, isthe final court of appeal for all of Britain’s Crown Dependencies and Overseas
Territories, and for a number of British Commonwealth jurisdictions too (seemap).
This legal backstop to these (mostly small) jurisdictions’ legal systems – which
covers both civil and criminal cases1 - provides a potent bedrock upon which
their financial services industries have been built. Skittish owners of financial
capital tend to be more cautious about fully independent jurisdictions without
such an external legal backstop, fearing local corruption in the judiciary whichmight threaten the safety of their assets. Cases such as this one help protect
and preserve this bedrock.
Beyond this role as a final court of appeal, Britain’s Privy Council serves manyother roles that are beyond the scope of this report. To find out more about thispeculiar, ancient British institution, see this commentary on the Privy Council ina modern democracy, and the official UK Privy Council website.
There are correlations between British Commonwealth countries’ secrecy scoresand their having the Judicial Committed of the Privy Council as final court ofappeal or not.
For instance, the average secrecy score for the 23 British Commonwealthcountries (excluding the UK but including Overseas Territories and Crown
Dependencies) that have the Judicial Committed of the Privy Council as their
final appeal court and are included in the Financial Secrecy Index is 71. In
contrast, those 24 Commonwealth countries included in the index that did not
retain the Privy Council have a secrecy score of 66.12. Of those Commonwealth
1 To use the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as a final court of appeal, leave must begranted by a lower court. This happens only in certain circumstances. As the Judicial Committeeof the Privy Council notes: “In civil cases, the lower court will generally grant you leave toappeal if the court is satisfied that your case raises a point of general public importance. In
criminal cases, it is unusual for the lower court to have the power to grant leave unless yourcase raises questions of great and general importance, or there has been some grave violationof the principles of natural justice.”members that retained the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, 63 per cent
(19 of 30) have a secrecy score of 65 or more, pointing to secrecy jurisdiction
status; but of those that did not retain the Privy Council, only just over one third(13 of 37) have a secrecy score above 65, suggesting that offering financial
secrecy is unlikely to be a core economic strategy of most Commonwealthcountries not within the jurisdiction of the Privy Council.2 (For comparisonpurposes, the average secrecy score for all countries included in the Financial
Secrecy Index 2020 is 63.86.) The following table provides the data.
Table 1. Jurisdiction of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and secrecy scores for
Commonwealth countries

Commonwealth countries incl.
Overseas Territories and Crown
Dependencies
Anguilla
Antigua and Barbuda
Australia
BahamasBangladesh
Barbados
BelizeBermudaBotswana
British Virgin Islands
BruneiCameroon
CanadaCayman Islands
Cook Islands
CyprusDominica
Falkland Islands
FijiGambia
Ghana
Gibraltar
GrenadaGuernsey

Privy council
See here

Secrecyscore 2020xx

78.20
76.08
50.90
75.38
72.73
74.00
73.93
72.73
62.24
71.30
78.30
71.48
55.84
76.08
70.30

xx
xxxx
x - sovereign base areas
only
xxx
x
x

61.08
73.65

74.88
51.70
69.48
70.55
70.65

2 We are only making comparisons and noting correlations here, not commenting on causation.

The reasons for these scores are likely to be complex. At least part of the reason for these trends
is likely to be because larger jurisdictions (such as Australia, Canada and India) have sufficiently
well-developed legal systems to not need the UK’s backstop; these larger jurisdictions tend not tobe as aggressive as smaller jurisdictions in offering secrecy, since the smaller jurisdictions
frequently feel they have few other tools to attract footloose financial capital. Nicholas Shaxson’sbook Treasure Islands discusses some of the politics around how some British Caribbean
jurisdictions were both seeking to be, and were being actively encouraged by London to be,secrecy jurisdictions, though it did not explore the particular point about whether or not to retain
the Judicial Committee of Council the Privy. Further research would be needed to obtain a fuller
picture of correlation and causation here and of the true importance of the Privy Council to thesejurisdictions.

Commonwealth countries incl.
Overseas Territories and Crown
Dependencies
GuyanaIndia
Isle of Man
Jamaica
JerseyKenya
Kiribati
Lesotho
MalawiMalaysia
Maldives
Malta
MauritiusMontserrat
Mozambique
NamibiaNauru
New ZealandNigeria
Niue
PakistanPapua New Guinea
Pitcairn Islands
RwandaSamoa
Seychelles
Sierra Leone
Singapore
Solomon Islands
South Africa
Sri Lanka
St Helena
St Kitts and Nevis
St Lucia
St Vincent and the Grenadines
Swaziland
Tanzania
Tonga
Trinidad and Tobago
Turks and Caicos
TuvaluUgandaUnited Kingdom
Vanuatu
ZambiaPrivy council
See herexxx

Secrecyscore 2020
47.84
64.68
65.53
75.95

xx
x

69.53
79.83
61.75
71.53
74.60

59.95
59.20
70.15

x
55.05

x
63.00
74.63
70.44
64.98
56.24
72.18

xxxx

75.18
71.03
65.65
70.78

xxx

64.65
77.83

x

46.20
76.30