admonished by the Speaker. (a) In 1858, an article having been published in the Carlisle Examiner and North-Western Advertiser, imputing partial and corrupt motives to the chairman of a committee on a railway bill, and containing reflections on other members of the committee, it was resolved by the House that the article was a false and scandalous libel on the chairman and members of the committee, and that the proprietor and publisher of the newspaper had been guilty of a breach of the privileges of the House, and should be committed to the custody of the Serjeant-at-arms. He was discharged from custody on unreservedly retracting all imputations contained in the article, and paying the fees. (b) PART IV. CHAPTER V. The following resolutions relating to this subject have Resolutions of been passed by the House of Commons. In 1699 (22nd April) it was resolved "that the publishing the names of the members of this House, and reflecting upon them, and misrepresenting their proceedings in Parliament, is a breach of the privilege of this House, and destructive of the freedom of Parliament." (c) In 1701 (26th February) a resolution of a committee was agreed to by the House, "that to print or publish any books or libels reflecting upon the proceedings of the House of Commons, or any member thereof, for or relating to his service therein, is a high violation of the rights and privileges of the House of Commons." (d) In 1790 (21st May) a general resolution was passed by the House," that it is against the law and usage of Parliament, and a high breach of the privilege of this House, to write, or publish, or cause to be written or published, any scandalous and libellous reflection on the honour and justice of this House, in any of the impeachments or prosecutions in which it is engaged."(e) the House of Commons. commitment. The legality of commitments by the House of Com- Legality of mons, on the Speaker's warrant, was discussed and fully recognised by the Court of King's Bench in the case of Burdett v. Abbott.(f) That was an action against the Speaker of the House of Commons for breaking and entering the house of the plaintiff (a member of Parliament), arresting him, taking him to the Tower of London, and imprisoning him there; acts which the defendant justified under a resolution of the House that a certain letter published by (a) 87 Com. J. 278, 294. (b) 113 Com. J. 189, 192, 203. See also 72 lb. 232; 93 lb. 436. 12 Com. J. 661. (d) 13 Com. J. 767. PART IV. CHAPTER V. the plaintiff in Cobbett's Weekly Register, was "a libellous and scandalous paper, reflecting on the just rights and privileges of that House," and that the plaintiff had thereby been guilty of a breach of the privileges of the House; whereupon it was ordered that the Speaker should issue his warrant to commit him to the Tower. "Can the High Court of Parliament," said Lord Ellenborough, C.J., in his judgment, "or either of the two Houses of which it consists, be deemed not to possess intrinsically that authority of punishing summarily for contempts which is acknowledged to belong, and is daily exercised as belonging, to every superior court of law, of less dignity undoubtedly than itself? And is not the degradation and disparagement of the two Houses of Parliament, in the estimation of the public, by contemptuous libels, as much an impediment to their efficient acting with regard to the public, as the actual obstruction of an individual member by bodily force, in his endeavour to resort to the place where Parliament is holden? And would it consist with the dignity of such bodies, or, what is more, with the immediate and effectual exercise of their important functions, that they should wait the comparatively tardy result of a prosecution in the ordinary course of law for the vindication of their privileges from wrong and insult? The necessity of the case would therefore, upon principles of natural reason, seem to require that such bodies, constituted for such purposes and exercising such functions as they do, should possess the powers which the history of the earliest times shows that they have in fact possessed and used.”(a) (a) It has been held in America, by the Supreme Court of the United States, that the House of Representatives has, by necessary implication, a general power of punishing and committing for contempts, notwithstanding that the lex scripta, "the Constitution of the United States," had expressly conferred upon it a power to punish "its members; thereby, as it was argued, on the principle that enumeratio unius est exclusio alterius, prohibiting the jurisdiction in the case of persons not members of the House. "It is true," said Johnson, J., delivering the judgment of the court, "that such a power, if it exists, must be derived from implication, and the genius and spirit of our institutions are hostile to the exercise of implied powers. That a deliberate assembly, clothed with the majesty of the people, and charged with the care of all that is dear to them; composed of the most distinguished citizens, selected and drawn together from every quarter of a great nation; whose deliberations are required by public opinion to be conducted under the eye of the public, and whose decisions must be clothed with all that sanctity which unlimited confidence in their wisdom and purity can inspire; that such an assembly should not possess the power to suppress rudeness or repel insult, is a supposition too wild to be suggested: (Anderson v. Dunn, 6 Wheat. Rep. 204.) The Speaker, in issuing such a warrant, does not, according to Bayley, J.,(a) act in the character of a subordinate officer, but in that of a member of the House. "When the House make an order that their Speaker shall issue his warrant, they do not direct him to do it as a subordinate minister to them, but only as being the individual member of greatest dignity in the House, by whom on this and other occasions the House speaks and acts; and his act in this respect is not, I think, the act of an officer, but the act of a member of the House. But if," adds the learned judge, "it were the act of an officer of the House, acting under and by virtue of its judgment on the subject matter, I cannot help thinking that, where a court has competent jurisdiction to decide upon a point, and has decided and given judgment upon it, and they direct their officer to carry that judgment into execution, the officer is protected by that judgment." (b) This was so decided by the Court of Exchequer Chamber (c) (Parke, Alderson, and Rolfe, BB., Coltman, Maule, and Creswell, JJ.), reversing the decision of the majority of the Court of Queen's Bench, who held a Speaker's warrant void because it did not show a sufficient authority on the face of it to justify the defendant in all he admitted to have done. Parke, B., in delivering the unanimous judgment of the Exchequer Chamber, says: "Writs issued by a superior court, not appearing to be out of the scope of their jurisdiction, are valid and of themselves, without any further allegation, a protection to all officers and others in their aid acting under them; and that, although they be on the face of them irregular, as a capias against a peeress-Countess of Rutland's case; (d) or void in form, as a capias ad respondendum not returnable the next termParsons v. Lloyd; (e) for the officers ought not to examine the judicial act of the court whose servants they are, nor exercise their judgment touching the validity of the process in point of law, but are bound to execute it, and are therefore protected by it-Turner v. Filgate, (f) Cotes v. Michill.(g) . . . If in these courts the writ of attachment need not state any special grounds in order to show that the court is acting duly, formally, and regularly, what good reason can be (a) 14 East. 159. (b) Id. 160. Sir Francis Burdett brought an action also against the Serjeant-at-arms of the House of Commons for an assault and false imprisonment in the execution of the Speaker's warrant, but did not succeed: (Burdett v. Colman, 14 East. 163.) (c) Howard v. Gosset (10 Q. B. 359). (d) 6 Rep. 54 a. (g) 3 Lev. 20. PART IV. CHAPTER V. PART IV. CHAPTER V. assigned for requiring the House of Commons to do so? If the writ of attachment in the general form used is a protection to the sheriff, the officer of the court executing it (as it undoubtedly is), and he need state nothing in his plea but the issuing of the attachment-Levinz's Entries, p. 191; Britton v. Cole (1 Salk. 408; Com. Dig. "Pleader,” 3 M. 24),—why should not the warrant of the Speaker in a general form be equally a protection. to the Serjeant-at-arms, the proper officer of the House? We are clearly of opinion that at least as much respect is to be shown and as much authority to be attributed to these mandates of the House as to those of the highest courts in the country; and if the officers of the ordinary courts are bound to obey the process delivered to them, and are therefore protected by it, the officer of the House of Commons is as much bound and equally protected. . The possibility of abuse, which is urged as an objection to the power of either House to issue its mandate in such a form, is no valid argument against its existence. If it were, it would apply equally to all the superior courts, which, without doubt, have such power; and it would apply also to the other admitted legal powers of these courts, which may be abused without adequate remedy. In case of an improper exercise of the power of attachment by a court of law or equity, or by either branch of the High Court of Parliament, there can be no appeal the only remedy is by application to the sense of justice of each court; and it would be improper to suppose that any one of them would be more likely to abuse the power, or less likely to grant redress, than another." : The warrant of commitment is not to be construed strictly as that of an inferior court or justice of the peace, but it is to be construed as a writ of a superior court, not appearing on the face of it to be beyond the scope of its jurisdiction; (a) and therefore the warrant, though it does not specify the (a) Howard v. Gosset (10 Q. B. 359, 411). Powys, J., says in Reg. v. Paty (2 Ld. Ray, 1108) that "the House of Commons is a great court, and all things done by them are intended to have been ritè acta, and the matter need not be so specially recited in their warrants; by the same reason as we commit people by a rule of court of two lines, and such commitments are held good because it is intended that we understand what we do." So Blackstone, J. (Brass Crosbys' case, 3 Wils. 205): "Little nice objections of particular words and forms and ceremonies of execution are not to be regarded in the acts of the House of Commons; it is our duty to presume the orders of that House and their execution are according to law." Hawkins (3 Pl. Cr. 219, B. 2, c. 15, s. 73) says: "There can be no doubt but that the highest regard is to be paid to all the proceedings of either of those Houses, and that wherever the contrary does not plainly and expressly appear, it shall be presumed that they act within their jurisdiction, and equally to the usages of Parliament, and the rules of law and justice." cause of arrest, furnishes a justification to the officer who PART IV. executes it. (a) CHAPTER V. will not Each House of Parliament is the sole judge whether its privileges have been violated, and whether thereby any per- Courts of law son has been guilty of a contempt of its authority. The examine courts of common law will not inquire into or review its propriety of decision in this respect. (b) A commitment by the House of Commons is not reversible for form by a court of common law. (c) "We cannot," says Lord Tenterden in Reg. v. Hobhouse, (d) "inquire into the form of the commitment, even supposing it open to objection on the ground of informality.' Where the commitment is for a libel, the Speaker's warrant need not set out what the libel is. "That point is perfectly settled in the case of Burdett v. Abbott, and it is also established by all the cases on this subject, that if one court commit for a contempt, no other court can inquire into that contempt."(e) commitment. Colonial legislative assemblies have not the same power, Colonial in this respect, as the Imperial Parliament. "The privilege of committing for contempt," said Lord Denman, C.J., (f) "is inherent in every deliberative body invested with authority by the constitution." In similarly unqualified language, Parke, B., in Beaumont v. Barret,(g) stated it "to be inherent in every assembly that possesses a supreme legislative authority, to have the power of punishing contempts, and not merely such as are a direct obstruction to its due course of proceeding, but such also as have a tendency indirectly to produce such an obstruction, in the same way as courts of record may not only remove or punish persons who actually are interrupting their functions, but may also repress those who indirectly impede the administration of justice by disparaging and weakening their authority." And on this ground chiefly, but partly on that of usage and acquiescence, (h) coupled with the adoption of the power in question by virtue of legislative enactment forming the Act of Settlement of the island, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council held, in that case, that the Jamaica House of Assembly had the power of committing a person who had (a) Howard v. Gosset (ubi suprà). (b) See Stockdale v. Hansard (9 A. & E. 169, 195). (c) Per Gould, J., Reg. v. Paty (2 Ld. Ray. 1106). (d) 2 Chit. Rep. 210. (e) Per Parke, B. (1 Moore's P. C. C. 80). (f) See Stockdale v. Hansard (9 A. & E. 114). (g) 1 Moore's P. C. C. 76. (h) See also the language of Lord Ellenborough, C.J., in Burdet v. Abbott (14 East. 137). assemblies. |