Rejections ‘proper’

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32679, 7 August 1971, Page 2

Rejections ‘proper’

<N.t. Fr«« A««oeiation>

WELLINGTON, Aug. 6.

There must be a limit to the kind of language that could be used in any proceedings of Parliament, the Labour Party’s spokesman on legal affairs, Dr A. M. Finlay, M.P. for Henderson, said today. Dr Finlay was commenting on the rejection by the chairman (Sir Leslie Munro) of parts of submissions put forward by a number of witnesses to the Joint Select Committee considering four drug bills. Yesterday Sir Leslie Munro declined to hear part of the submissions of Dr E. Geiringer, secretary of the New Zealand Medical Association, and today a Palmerston North group was refused per- * mission to make submissions. The hearing started earlier than usual, and representatives of the group, described as the “Friends of Youth Organisation,” were admitted. A spokesman, Mr A. Miller, said it was an ad hoc body set up to make submissions on the bills.

Sir Leslie Munro told Mr Miller that his submissions,

which took the form of a satirical, amended version of the Welfare of Minors Bill, were “totally irrelevant,” and that the committee would not hear them. “The submissions are in contempt of this committee.” In an interview, Dr Finlay said that the proceedings of a select committee of the House should follow the proceedings of the House itself as far as possible. But the

circumstances were not entirely parallel. What had happened in the present committee was that the chairman, who was perfectly entitled to do so, had

ruled that certain submismissions would riot be received, on the stated ground that they contained unparliamentary language. “The language objected to yesterday was certainly in bad taste, and in my judgment some of it was libellous,” Dr Finlay said.

“The fact that a statement is defamatory does not make it unparliamentary, and in fact there is special provision in the law to enable a member of Parliament to say what he feels ought to be said without fear of such legal proceedings. "Although it is not entirely clear, there is good author-ity-that the same privilege extends to evidence given by witnesses before select committees.

"However, I am firmly of the opinion that the chairman of a select committee has a duty to see that any such privilege is not abused, and there must be a limit to the kind of language that can be used in any of the proceedings of Parliament.

"The limit fixed is in the sole discretion of whoever happens to be in charge of that particular aspect of its proceedings.

“For my part, I am inclined to think that an equally and possibly more sustainable ground for querying some of the evidence that has been rejected by the committee is that it is completely irrelevant to the subject matter under consideration."

Dr. Finlay said the evidence as submitted, was properly the subject of comment by the chairman, and if he had hot commented on it he would have been encouraging an unwarranted attack on Parliamentary institutions which would be damaging to the whole democratic process.