The House can inter

that, short of a criminal offence committed within the House or by its order, no court would take cognizance of that which passes within its walls.

The best illustration of this statement is the recent case of Bradlaugh v. Gossett 1. In that case, the plaintiff complained that having been elected and returned member for the borough of Northampton, he had not been allowed to take the oath required by the Parliamentary Oaths Act, 29 & 30 Vict. c. 19, and that, by a resolution of the House, the Serjeant-at-arms had been ordered to exclude Mr. Bradlaugh from the House until he shall engage no further to disturb the proceedings of the House.' The disturbance in question arose from the attempt of Mr. Bradlaugh to take the oath which the law required him to take, and which a resolution of the House prevented him from taking. The plaintiff asked the Court to declare the order of the House to be void, and to restrain the Serjeant-at-arms from carrying it into effect.

The Court held that it was not concerned with the interpret rules pretation which the House of Commons for the regulation of for its own its internal procedure chose to place upon a statute; and that procedure. the House, having power of exclusion, had power to effect such exclusion by the necessary force. The law on the subject is very clearly set forth in the judgment of Stephen J. 2

'In order to raise the question now before us, it is necessary to assume that the House of Commons has come to a resolution inconsistent with the Act; for, if the resolution and the Act are not inconsistent, the plaintiff has obviously no grievance. We must of course face this supposition, and give our decision upon the hypothesis of its truth. But it would be indecent and improper to make the further supposition that the House of Commons deliberately and intentionally defies and breaks the Statute-law. The more decent, and I may add the more natural and probable supposition is, that, for reasons which are not before us, and of which we are therefore unable to judge, the House of Commons considers that there is no inconsistency between the Act and the Resolution. They may

1 12 Q. B. D. 271.

2

Bradlaugh v. Gossett, 12 Q. B. D. 280.

think there is some implied exception to the Act. They may think that what the plaintiff proposes to do is not in compliance with its directions. With this we have nothing to do. Whatever may be the reasons of the House of Commons for their conduct it would be impossible for us to do justice without hearing and considering those reasons; but it would be equally impossible for the House, with any regard for its own dignity and independence, to suffer its reasons to be laid before us for that purpose, or to accept our interpretation of the law in preference to its own.

It seems to follow that the House of Commons has the exclusive The Courts power of interpreting the statute, so far as the regulation of its own accept that interpretaproceedings within its own walls is concerned; and that, even if tion. that interpretation should be erroneous, this Court has no power to interfere with it directly or indirectly.'

no cognizance of things done within the

The point at which Courts of Law will enter upon a dis- They take cussion as to the limits of privilege and the effect of resolutions of the House outside its walls is a matter for separate consideration. But the Judges in the case referred to, state, as clearly as it is possible to state a legal proposition, that they would take cognizance of nothing which was done within 12 Q. B. D. the walls of the House' short of a criminal offence.

House,

p. 283.

case of

It should be noted that the Courts have more than once intimated that a crime committed in the House or by its order except in would not thereby be considered outside their jurisdiction. crime. In the case of Sir John Eliot and others above referred to, Ante, who were convicted of seditious speeches in Parliament and of P. 148. an assault upon the Speaker, the House of Lords, reversing the judgment upon error, does so on the ground that two distinct offences were included in one judgment, and that one of these offences, the alleged seditious speeches, was not cognizable by the Court of King's Bench. But it was not thereby decided that an assault upon a member of the House, committed within its walls, might not be dealt with in a Court of Law; and Lord Ellenborough, in Burdett v. Abbott, guards himself by saying that it will be time to consider such a case when it arises 1

1 12 East, at p. 128.

Admonition.

Reprimand.

Commit

ment.

6

And lastly, Mr. Justice Stephen says that he knows of no authority for the proposition that an ordinary crime committed in the House of Commons would be withdrawn from the ordinary course of criminal justice 1.'

(c) Power of inflicting punishment for breach of Privilege.

The House is invested, as we have seen, with the exclusive power of regulating its own procedure and adjudging matters which arise within its walls. It follows, that the House must possess some power of enforcing its privileges in this respect, and of punishing those who infringe them.

The offences for which punishment is inflicted may be generally described as disrespect to any member of the House, as such, by a person not being a member; disrespect to the House collectively, whether committed by a member or any other; disobedience to orders of the House, or interference with its procedure, with its officers in the execution of their duty, or with witnesses in respect of evidence given before the House or a Committee of the House.

The mildest form of punishment is by summons to the bar of the House, followed by an admonition addressed to the offender by the Speaker. The person so summoned may purge himself of his contempt by an apology accepted by the House in full satisfaction of his offence, and so may escape being admonished.

A more serious mark of the displeasure of the House is a reprimand, addressed to the offender by the Speaker. This however is almost invariably preceded by commitment 2.

Commitment is in the first instance to the custody of the Sergeant at Arms, an officer whose appointment and duties I have described already.

Before dealing with the right to commit to custody, or to prison, I will note two other forms of punishment used by the House.

1 12 Q. B. D. 283.

2 For the exceptions see May, Parl. Practice (ed. 9), 115.

In former times the House of Commons has imposed fines Fine. for breaches of privilege, but the practice has long been discontinued, except in so far as the payment of fees as a condition precedent to release from imprisonment partakes of the nature of a fine'.

In the case of its own members, the House has a stronger Expulsion. mode of expressing its displeasure. It can by resolution expel a member, and order the Speaker to issue his warrant for a new writ for the seat from which the member has been expelled. But it cannot prevent the re-election of such a member by declaring him incapable of sitting in that Parliament. In attempting to do this, in the case of Wilkes, the House had ultimately to admit that it could not create a disqualification unrecognised by law 2.

But expulsion is a private matter, affecting the composition of the House itself, and amounts to no more than an expression of opinion that the person expelled is unfit to be a member of the House of Commons. The imposition of a fine would be an idle process unless backed by the power of commitment. It is, then, the right of commitment which becomes, in the words of Sir E. May, 'the keystone of Parliamentary privilege.' It remains to consider how it is exercised and by what right.

When a person is committed to the custody of the Sergeant at Arms, he may purge himself of his contempt by an apology, or he may be let off with a reprimand, or he may be committed to prison; or, in the case of a flagrant contempt, the person guilty may be committed to prison without being previously brought into the presence of the House or given an opportunity of apologising.

1 May, Parl. Practice, 115. No fine has been imposed since 1666: but on April 7, 1892, there was some question of inflicting a fine upon directors of a railway company for dismissing a servant of the company on account of evidence given before a Committee of the House. The matter did not go beyond discussion, but a considerable minority of the House seemed anxious to vote for forms of punishment which the House had no machinery for enforcing.

2 Parl. Hist. xxii. 1407.

The limit of But the power of the House to punish in this manner is imprisonlimited by the duration of the Session; prorogation releases ment. prisoners committed by its order, whether or no they have paid their fees. The House cannot therefore imprison for any fixed term; if it did so, and a prorogation occurred before the conclusion of the term, the prisoner would be entitled to a discharge by a writ of habeas corpus.

The origin of this power of commitment for contempt has been variously stated.

Grounds of It has been claimed for the House as a right inherent in right to commit. every Court of Record; but there is much discussion as to whether the House is or is not a Court of Record.

House is

In the case of Fortescue and Goodwin the House veheThat the mently contended that it was a Court of Record1: so too in the debate on Floyde's case, where Coke is reported to have said: 'No question but this a House of Record, and hath power of judicature in some cases. Have power to judge of Returns and Members of our House.'

a Court of Record.

6 Hen.

VIII.c. 16.

But if the House rests its claim on this ground, the claim has been abandoned with the abandonment of the right to determine controverted elections. It might be said that the Journals of the House are records, and this also was maintained by Lord Coke. He rested his argument on the words of the Act of Henry VIII, which requires license or leave of absence given to a member 'to be entered of Record in the book of the Clerk of the House.' But it is doubtful whether the word record' is there used in a technical sense.

The Journals of the House2, which are prepared by the clerk of the House from entries of the proceedings made by him daily, perused by the Speaker, and then printed for the use of members, are expressly declared by Lord Mansfield not to be matter of records. The dictum is obiter, but may fairly be

I Com. Jour. 604.

' The Rotuli Parliamentorum record the proceedings of Parliament from 1278 to 1503. The Lords' Journals commence in 1509: the Commons' Journals in 1547.

3 Jones v. Randall, 1 Cowp. 17.