PARLIAMENTARY, PRIVILEGE

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 48, 25 August 1931, Page 7

PARLIAMENTARY, PRIVILEGE

(To the Editor.) Sir, —Your sub-leader appearing in to« night's issue of "The Post" contains anj element of well-merited criticism direct" ed against the House of Representative* for its present inability to define exact* ly where Parliamentary privilege exists, and exactly where and when breaches o£ that privilege occur. It is indeed •well that the House has decided to inyesti« gate the general question of privilege, for Parliament, being as it is (for all practical purposes at any rate) the supreme authority of "the Law" in this Dominion, must be able to demonstrate its ability to deal judicially, with its interval and domestic regulations before tha general public will place any great faith in the legislation it imposes on the-com* mtmity as a whole. There is, however, one aspect of this matter of privilege which does not seem to have had any recognition in the re» cent discussions in the House, and which to my mind is of very great importance, for it touches on one of the underlying principles of fairness and justice of which we as a British nation are so proud. It is this, that under the present practice the House decides the question of privilege without hearing the other side of the ease; it first declares a breach of privilege to have been committed, and only then asks for an investigation o£ the circumstances, which often throw quite a different light on the matter; in« deed, that investigation is quite likely; to reveal facts which, had they been be-! fore the House in the first instance^ would have caused that Assembly to reject the motion '"'that a breach of privilege has been committed." But it is too late! The House, with what dignity it can in such circumstances assume, is ableonly to say, "We have already decided, that a breach has been committed, but we propose to take no action in thq matter." You, Sir, will recall that, a few year* ago, a much respected minister of religion! was summoned to appear before a Coin" mittee of the House set up to ascertain the facts connected with a breach of privi« lege which Parliament had decided had been committed by reason of his having made defamatory statements concerning a. member. The principles of Parliamentary; law and civil law are identical in theif, application to such a case, and the al« leged offender prepared himself to bai examined by the Committee, before which he proposed to justify his statements, i.e., he contended that what he had said was true, and that as a statement, however, defamatory, is not actionable if proved to be true, no breach of privilege had been committed by him. The Committee ruled him out of order, holding that it* duty was not to discover whether tha breach had been committed (for the House had already decided that part of the matter) but only to report on the circumstances, and to verify the fact of. the statement having been made. That in itself was a sufficient condemnation of the practice followed by Parliament in dealing with the matter, for ha had been found guilty without trial or a right to defend himself on a. chargo of which he claimed to be innocent. But see the absurdity that follows: supposing that when the Committee investigated the matter he had been able truly to say, and had in fact said, "I have never made that or any similar statement," what is Parliament to do? It can only take up the Gilbertian altitude of saying, "Oh! but you must have said it: we have already decided that you have committed a, breach of privilege." And there the matter would of necessity end: Parliament could not deal with the alleged offender, for he had been guilty of no offence, yet the Parliamentary Record would evidence for all time the fact that "he had committed a breach. I set these facts out at length in order to show how ridiculous Parliament can be made to appear if the present practice is persisted in, and in the hope that the House, recognising the absurdity of the situation, will, in its anticipated revision of the existing practice, make such necessary amendments as will enable it to set up its Committee of Privilege to investigate and report before deciding whether a breach has been committed. The offender would then be able to appear in his defence before the Committee without having been pre-judged guilty, and the dignity of the proceedings of the House would not be imperilled by the happening of such an incident as I have instanced above.—l am, etc R. HARDIE-BOYS 21st August.