Parliamentary Privilege

Question 1

Justification 1 for parliamentary privilege

Answer 1

• Parliament is a self-regulatory system
• the dignity, effectiveness, and authority of the house: to control its own procedures; to admit and expel MPs; punish non-members for obstructing the Houses’ business
• Sources: practices, customs, and traditions; resolutions of the House and rulings by the Speaker, common law decisions; Acts of Parliament

Question 2

Justification 2: the dignity and efficiency of the House

Answer 2

• ‘In order to carry out these public duties without fear or favour, Parliament and its members and officers need certain rights and immunities’
• ‘Parliament needs the right to regulate its own affairs, free from intervention by the government or the courts’
• ‘Members need to be able to speak freely, uninhibited by possible defamation claims’
• ‘These rights and immunities, rooted in this country’s constitutional history are known as parliamentary privilege’
• – Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege, Report

Question 3

Component 1: Bill of Rights 1689, Art 9

Answer 3

• ‘That the Freedom of Speech and Debates or Proceedings in Parlyament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any Court of Place out of Parlyament’
• Only exists in parliamentary proceedings
• contradicts rule of law

Question 4

‘Proceedings in Parliament’

Answer 4

• The absolute privilege of freedom of speech for Members
• enables MPs to say or do something in the course of ‘proceedings in Parliament’ which, elsewhere, would give rise to civil or criminal liability
• Safeguards constitutional functions of parliament, allowing them to be carried out to their full potential - Pepper v Hart

Question 5

‘Exclusive cognisance/jurisdiction’

Answer 5

• the House may judge, without interference, the lawfulness of its own proceedings and determine what those proceedings will be
• Control over matters internal to the House, including: recognition of members, taking of the oath by members passage of bulls, issuance of writs for by-elections admission of non-members
• does not mean they are exempt from the law, parliament is in jurisdiction of the courts

Question 6

What is Contempt of Parliament?

Answer 6

• Any act or omission which obstructs or impedes the house or a member or officer in the performance of functions may be treated as contempt
• the House has inherent power to protect its privileges and to punish and discipline those who violate its privileges

Question 7

How is Contempt of Parliament punished?

Answer 7

• Reprimand by Speaker
• Members may be suspended or expelled
• officers of the house may be dismissed
• imprisonment may be imposed, including in HM Prisons

Question 8

Examples of contempt

Answer 8

• disorderly conduct within the precincts of the House
• refusal to give evidence to a committee of the House
• interference with the giving of evidence of others
• obstruction of a member accessing the hoUSE
• premature disclosure of the proceedings of the House