Editing Attorney general (section)

{{Short description|Chief legal advisor to a government}}
{{redirect-distinguish|Counsel General|general counsel|Consul general}}
In most [[common law]] jurisdictions, the '''attorney general''' ({{plural form}}: '''attorneys general''')<ref>{{cite web|url=https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/attorney-general|title=Meaning of attorney general in English - Cambridge Dictionary|website=www.dictionary.cambridge.org}}</ref> or '''attorney-general''' ('''AG''' or '''Atty.-Gen'''<ref>Used more frequently in American jurisdictions. [https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/atty-gen Collin's Dictionary]</ref>) is the main legal advisor to the [[government]]. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have executive responsibility for [[law enforcement]] and prosecutions, or even responsibility for legal affairs generally. In practice, the extent to which the attorney general personally provides legal advice to the government varies between jurisdictions, and even between individual office-holders within the same jurisdiction, often depending on the level and nature of the office-holder's prior legal experience.

Where the attorney general has ministerial responsibility for legal affairs in general (as is the case, for example, with the [[United States Attorney General]] or the [[Attorney-General for Australia]], and the respective [[State attorney general|attorneys general]] of the states in each country), the ministerial portfolio is largely equivalent to that of a [[Justice ministry|Minister of Justice]] in some other countries.

The term was originally used to refer to any person who holds a general [[power of attorney]] to represent a principal in all matters. In the common law tradition, anyone who represents the state, especially in criminal prosecutions, is such an attorney. Although a government may designate some official as the permanent attorney general, anyone who came to represent the state in the same way could, in the past, be referred to as such, even if only for a particular case. Today, however, in most jurisdictions, the term is largely reserved as a title of the permanently appointed attorney general of the state, sovereign or other member of the royal family.

[[Civil law (legal system)|Civil law]] jurisdictions have similar offices, which may be variously called "public prosecutor general", "procurators", "[[Advocate General|advocates general]]", "public attorneys", and other titles. Many of these offices also use "attorney general" or "attorney-general" as the English translation of the title, although because of different historical provenance, the nature of such offices is usually different from that of attorneys-general in common law jurisdictions.