A Manual of Parliamentary Practice; Composed Originally for the Use of the Senate of the United States  (English, Paperback, Jefferson Thomas)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: t SECTION III. PRIVILEGE. The privileges of the members of Parliament, from small and obscure beginnings, have been advancing for centuries, with a firm and never-yielding pace. Claims seem to have been brought forward from time to time, and repeated till some example of their admission enabled them to build law on that example. We can only, therefore, state the point of progression at which they now are. It is now acknowledged, 1st, That they are at all times exempted from question elsewhere, for any thing said in their own house: that during the time of privilege, 2d, Neither a member himself, his wife, or his servants, [familiares sui] for any matter of their own, may bef arrested on mesne process, in any civil suit: 3d, Nor be detained under execution, though -levied before the time of privilege: 4th, Nor impleaded, cited, or subpoenaed, in any court : 5th, Nor summoned as a witness or juror: 6th, Not may their lands or goods be distrained: 7th, Nor their persons assaulted, or characters traduced. And the period of time, covered by privilege, before and after the session, with the practice of short prorogations under the connivance of the Crown, amounts in fact to a perpetual protection against the course of justice. In one instance, indeed, it has been relaxed by 10 Q-.' 3, c. 50, which permits judiciary proceedings to go on against them. That these privileges must be continually progressive, seems to result from their rejecting all definition of them; the doctrine being, that " their dignity and independence are preserved by Order of the House of Commons, 1663, July 16. t Ekynge, 217; 1 Hats. 21; 1 Grey's Deb. 133, keeping their privileges indefinite;" and that " the maxims upon which they proceed, together with the method of proceeding, rest entireT.y in the...