Legal Proceedings.

V. The provisions of the fourteenth section of "The Corrupt "Practices Prevention Act, 1854," shall extend to a misdemeanor or to any other offence under the Corrupt Practices Prevention Acts not punishable by a penalty or forfeiture, as well as to proceedings for any offence punishable by a penalty or forfeiture.

VI. In any indictment or information for bribery or undue influence, and in any action or proceeding for any penalty for bribery, treating, or undue influence, it shall be sufficient to allege that the defendant was at the election at or in connexion with which the offence is intended to be alleged to have been committed guilty of bribery, treating, or undue influence (as the case may require); and in any criminal or civil proceedings in relation to any such offence the certificate of the returning officer in this behalf shall be sufficient evidence of the due holding of the election, and of any person therein named having been a candidate thereat.

VII. No person who is called as a witness before any election committee, or any commissioners appointed in pursuance of the Act of the session holden in the fifteenth and sixteenth years of the reign of Her present Majesty, chapter fifty-seven, shall be excused from answering any question relating to any corrupt practice at, or connected with, any election forming the subject of inquiry by such committee or commissioners, on the ground that the answer thereto may criminate or tend to criminate himself: Provided always, that where any witness shall answer every question relating to the matters aforesaid which he shall be required by such committee or commissioners (as the case may be) to answer, and the answer to which may criminate, or tend to criminate him, he shall be entitled to receive from the committee, under the hand of their clerk, or from the commissioners, under their hands (as the case may be), a certificate stating that such witness was, upon his examination, required by the said committee or commissioners to answer questions or a question relating to the matters aforesaid, the answers or answer to which criminated or tended to criminate him, and had answered all such questions or such question; and if any information, indictment, or action be at any time thereafter pending in any court against such witness for any offence under the Corrupt Practices Prevention Acts, or for which he might have been prosecuted or proceeded against under such acts, committed by him previously to the time of his giving his evidence, and at or in relation to the election concerning or in relation to which the witness may have been so examined, the court shall, on production and proof of such certificate, stay the proceedings in such last-mentioned information, indictment, or action, and may, at its discretion, award to such witness such costs as he may have been put to in such information, indictment, or action: Provided that no statement made by any person in answer to any question put by or before such election committee or commissioners shall, except in cases of indictments for perjury, be admissible in evidence in any proceeding, civil or criminal.

Election Committees.

VIII. The following regulations shall be made with respect to the proceedings of select committees appointed to try election petitions:

1. On any charge of treating being brought before any election c mittee, it shall not be necessary, unless the committee sha otherwise decide, to prove agency in the first instance be giving in evidence the facts whereby the charge of treating be sustained:

2. Where any person who has voted at any election is found by committee to have been guilty of bribery or treating at su election, his vote shall be void, and may, upon a scrutiny, struck off the list of voters, notwithstanding that the name such guilty person has not been included in the list of voters! be objected to: 3. Where any election petition complains that bribery, treating, other corrupt practices have been committed at any election, committee to whose determination such petition is referred s report to the House of Commons whether or not corrupt practis have, or whether there is reason to believe corrupt practices bav extensively prevailed at such election in the place to which petition refers.

IX. Where an election committee has reported to the House d Commons that certain persons named by them have been guilty d bribery or treating, and where it appears by the report of any co mission of inquiry into corrupt practices at any election made to He Majesty and laid before Parliament that certain persons named by thes have been guilty of the offences of bribery or treating, and have not bee furnished by them with certificates of indemnity, such report, with t evidence taken by the commission, shall be laid before the Attons General, with a view to his instituting a prosecution against such persas if the evidence should, in his opinion, be sufficient to support a pr secution.

Repeal.

X. There shall be repealed the several Acts of Parliament mention in the Schedule hereto to the extent specified in the third column of te said Schedule, but such repeal shall not affect the punishment of offence or the recovery of any penalty or forfeiture incurred under ar of the provisions hereby repealed.

XI. The Corrupt Practices Prevention Acts shall continue in force for a period of five years from the date of the passing of this Act, M from thenceforth until the end of the then next session of Parliament.

The Schedule. Extent of Repeal.

15th and 16th Vic, cap 57. A.D. 1852. Sections 9 and 10.

17th and 18th Vic., cap. 102. A.D. 1854. Sections 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, and 34. 21st and 22nd Vic., cap. 87. A.D. 1858. So much of Section (1) as provides that a full, true, and particular account of all paymers made for such conveyance, signed by the candidate or his agents. shall be delivered to the election auditor, with the names and addresses of the persons to whom such payments have been made, and the amount of such account shall be included in the general account of the expenses incurred at any election to be made out and kept by such election auditor. Also Sections 2, 4.

"THE ELECTION PETITIONS AND CORRUPT PRACTICES AT ELECTIONS ACT, 1868."

An Act for amending the Laws relating to Election Petitions, and providing more effectually for the prevention of corrupt practices at Parliamentary Elections. [31st July, 1868.] WHEREAS it is expedient to amend the laws relating to election petitions, and to provide more effectually for the prevention of corrupt practices at Parliamentary elections:

Be it enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords spiritual and temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

Preliminary.

I. This Act may be cited for all purposes as "The Parliamentary Elections Act, 1868."

II. The expression "the Court" shall, for the purposes of this Act, in its application to England mean the Court of Common Pleas at Westminster, and in its application to Ireland the Court of Common Pleas at Dublin, and such Court shall, subject to the provisions of this Act, have the same powers, jurisdiction, and authority with reference to an election petition and the proceedings thereon as it would have if such petition were an ordinary cause within their jurisdiction.

III. The following terms shall in this Act have the meanings hereinafter assigned to them, unless there is something in the context repugnant to such construction; (that is to say,)

"Metropolitan District" shall mean the City of London and the liberties thereof, and any parish or place subject to the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Board of Works:

"Election" shall mean an election of a member or members to serve in Parliament:

"County" shall not include a County of a City or County of a Town, but shall mean any county, riding, parts, or division of a county returning a member or members to serve in Parliament:

"Borough" shall mean any borough, university, city, place, or combination of places, not being a county as herein-before defined, returning a member or members to serve in Parliament:

"Candidate" shall mean any person elected to serve in Parliament at an election, and any person who has been nominated as or declared himself a candidate at an election:

"Corrupt Practices" or " Corrupt Practice" shall mean bribery, treating, and undue influence, or any of such offences, as defined by Act of Parliament, or recognized by the common law of Parliament: "Rules of Court" shall mean rules to be made as herein-after mentioned:

"Prescribed" shall mean "prescribed by the rules of Court.

IV. For the purposes of this Act "Speaker" shall be deemed to include deputy speaker; and when the office of speaker is vacant, the

clerk of the House of Commons, or any other officer for the time being performing the duties of the clerk of the House of Commons, shall be deemed to be substituted for and to be included in the expression “the speaker."

Presentation and Service of Petition.

V. From and after the next dissolution of Parliament a petition complaining of an undue return or undue election of a member to serve in Parliament for a county or borough may be presented to the Court of Common Pleas at Westminster, if such county or borough is situate in England, or to the Court of Common Pleas at Dublin, if such county o borough is situate in Ireland, by any one or more of the following persons:

1. Some person who voted or who had a right to vote at the election to which the petition relates; or,

2. Some person claiming to have had a right to be returned or elected at such election; or,

3. Some person alleging himself to have been a candidate at such election:

And such petition is herein-after referred to as an election petition.

VI. The following enactments shall be made with respect to the presentation of an election petition under this Act:

1. The petition shall be signed by the Petitioner, or all the Petitioners if more than One:

2. The petition shall be presented within twenty-one days after the return has been made to the clerk of the crown in Chancery in England, or to the clerk of the crown and hanaper in Ireland, is the case may be, of the member to whose election the petition relates, unless it question the return or election upon an allega tion of corrupt practices, and specifically alleges a payment of money or other reward to have been made by any member, or on his account, or with his privity, since the time of such return, in pursuance or in furtherance of such corrupt practices, in which case the petition may be presented at any time within twenty-eight days after the date of such payment:

3. Presentation of a petition shall be made by delivering it to the prescribed officer or otherwise dealing with the same in manner prescribed.

4.

At the time of the presentation of the petition, or within three days
afterwards, security for the payment of all costs, charges, and
expenses that may become payable by the petitioner-

(a.) to any person summoned as a witness on his behalf, or,
(b.) to the member whose election or return is complained of
(who is herein-after referred to as the respondent),

shall be given on behalf of the petitioner:

5. The security shall be to an amount of one thousand pounds; it shall be given either by recognizance to be entered into by any number of sureties not exceeding four, or by a deposit of money in manner prescribed, or partly in one way and partly in the

other.

VII.

On presentation of the petition the prescribed officer shall send a copy thereof to the returning officer of the county or borough to which the petition relates, who shall forthwith publish the same in the county or borough, as the case may be.

VIII. Notice of the presentation of a petition under this Act, and of the nature of the proposed security, accompanied with a copy of the petition, shall, within the prescribed time, not exceeding five days after the presentation of the petition, be served by the petitioner on the respondent; and it shall be lawful for the respondent, where the security is given wholly or partially by recognizance, within a further prescribed time, not exceeding five days from the date of the service on him of the notice, to object in writing to such recognizance, on the ground that the sureties, or any of them, are insufficient, or that a surety is dead, or that he cannot be found or ascertained from the want of a sufficient description in the recognizance, or that a person named in the recognizance has not duly acknowledged the same.

IX. Any objection made to the security given shall be heard and decided on in the prescribed manner. If an objection to the security is allowed it shall be lawful for the petitioner, within a further prescribed time, not exceeding five days, to remove such objection, by a deposit in the prescribed manner of such sum of money as may be deemed by the court or officer having cognizance of the matter to make the security sufficient.

If on objection made the security is decided to be insufficient, and such objection is not removed in manner herein-before mentioned, no further proceedings shall be had on the petition; otherwise, on the expiration of the time limited for making objections, or, after objection made, on the sufficiency of the security being established the petition shall be deemed to be at issue.

X. The prescribed officer shall, as soon as may be, make out a list of all petitions under this Act presented to the court of which he is such officer, and which are at issue, placing them in the order in which they were presented, and shall keep at his office a copy of such list, hereinafter referred to as the election list, open to the inspection in the prescribed manner of any person making application.

Such petitions, as far as conveniently may be, shall be tried in the order in which they stand in such list.

Trial of a Petition.

XI. The following enactments shall be made with respect to the trial of election petitions under this Act:

1. The trial of every election petition shall be conducted before a puisne judge of one Her Majesty's Superior Courts of common law at Westminster or Dublin, according as the same shall have been presented to the court at Westminster or Dublin, to be selected from a rota to be formed as herein-after mentioned.

2. The members of each of the Courts of Queen's Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer in England and Ireland shall respectively, on or before the third day of Michaelmas term in every year,

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