Law Society "concerned’

Press, 22 July 1988, Page 5

Law Society "concerned’

Political reporter

The Law Society has expressed its strong concern about Mr Bolger’s actions in naming in Parliament any person whose name had been suppressed by the courts.

Members of Parliament should respect the position of the Judiciary just as they would expect the Judiciary to respect the privileges of Parliament, said the Law Society’s executive director, Mr Alan Ritchie.

The privilege of free speech was secured to members of Parliament not for their personal benefit but to enable them to discharge the functions of their office without fear of prosecution, civil or criminal.

“There is a danger,” he said, “that on occasion an M.P. will be tempted to use the privilege not for the benefit of the constituents he or she represents but for party political purposes, petty point-scoring, personal political advan-

tage or some other extraneous purpose.” The Law Society had already advised Parliament that while it favoured the principle of Parliamentary privilege as a sensible protection, the rules should be amended to condemn criticism of non-members of Parliament except in those cases where criticism was unavoidable in the public interest. A judge would suppress the name of a defendant only for a good reason, Mr Ritchie said. Even if a member of Parliament was fully protected by privilege it was unacceptable that the justice system and the Judiciary should be flouted in this way.

Parliament’s rules were designed to protect its members from aspersions cast by other members in the House. There appeared to be no slm|la,r rule to protect the reputations of non-members of Parliament.