The Sun.
London, England, 1840-01-21 00:00:00

EVENfNG Er JITIoN

iuntil, on making an apol, 7gy and sub mission, he was re-
leased. In 1676, in the eye of S terling, an attorney
' was committed for breach i it privil cm in commencing
'an action against a Mem, t‘ier. In 1704 occurred the
memorable case of Ashby a nd NI /hits. ThiF, might be
the; re they h
denominated an extreme case ; ' h -a(/, committed
several persons for cowmen clog actions , which the
House of Lords had determi used migb' t be brought.
The House committed these persons
privilege, and the warrants e: tpressee4 on the face of
them the cause of commitment ; ar A
il except Holt, all
the Judges held that the comr aitineir far breach of
,ts were good. It
I had been said that time the H oust) had not exercised
this privilege, simply because tl ley had not been. called
ou so to do. Eleven out of • 'the twelve Judgr.:s had
decided in favour of the House ri Commons, and Black-
1, stone,Ellenborough,and Tends rden had held that. Holt was
wrong, and that the eleven we. e right, and in their decision
they had acquiesced from ti Jat time to the present. He
would mention a ease, to, which his Learned Friend
' had referred, and that W as the case of. Joy v. Topham,
which took place in the Convention Parliament, that
Parliament to which we were indebted for the Consti-
tution as we at present possessed it. Pemberton and
Jones, who at th at time had ceasrid to be Judges, were
summoned to ene bar, and questioned. as to a judg-
',neat they had delivered, in which privilege had been
pleaded, and they had overruled the plea ; they ac-
knowledged that their decision was not just, if the
plea had been properly pleaded, and they were com-
mitted to the custody ',f the Sergeant-at-arms. This
could not be called a precedent taken from bad times. '
His Hon. FrieTad had referred to 1640 and 1641, but
many of the tidings which had been done then had been
done with he full consent of the Crown, and many
laws wb.ich were then made continued still in
force. At all events, such an observation
-could not be applied to the time of the Convention
Parliament, which was one of tide brightest periods of
our history. What took ~Alace then took place
at a time when Lord So%nees was the highest legal
authority in the country, and when Holt himself was
a Member of the House of Commons. Were not
these sufficient prec'Jdents for the vindication of
their privileges and over-ruling the decisions of the
inferior Courts ? lie would now refer to the Reports of
a Comraittee, of the House of Commons in 1771. At
that time Crosby was Lord Mayor of London,
and such a flagrant violation of privilege was committed
by the City authorities, that the Sergeant-at-Arms was
arrested in the execution of his duty. It would be
forted at page 199 of the 17th vol. of the Parliamentary
Eistory, and it stated that the privileges of Parliament
had been infringed by evasion, by force, and by abuses
of the law. These points were proved by the evasion
'of the parties, and the riots which had occurred, and ,
the refusal to assist the Sergeant-at-Arms. In order to
remedy these abuses, the House proceeded to address
the Crown to issue its proclamation for the apprehension
of the persons who had evaded the orders of Coe House
by renewing the orders previously issued, ant by issuing
h orders to all mayors, bailiffs, sheriffs, to assist the Ser-
geant-at-Arms in apprehending such person., and directing
1 to call upon all such mayors and sheriffs for their assist-
ance, and by committing for breach of privilege those offi-
cers who had refused to assist the servants of the House,
and by restraining the bringing of suits and actions begun
and carried on against the officers, and directing that such
actions should be annulled and discontinued, and that the
House would proceed to annul those actions by committing
those Judges, who had proceeded to treat of privilege for
words or aotions spoken or done in obedience to the orders
of the House. All he contended for was that the House
was competent to restrain sui cs and actions brought con-
trary t'a its privileges, and to tinier them to be discontinued,
and he would ask the House now to say whether it would
submit to have its privileges subject to the interference of
any tribunal in the country, and hold them at its mercy ?
Aye or no. The 1.4r4V7 Courts had all exercised the same
pe•wer of committing for contempt and of restraining actions
from being brought. The Exchequer had frequently or-
dered actions brought against the authority of that Court
to be brought there from other Courts or to be disconti-
nued. In the case of Baily v. Evans, the Court of Chan-
cery had not suffered the Court of Queen's Bench to pro-
ceed in an action brought against one of its officers, and
there could be no doubt it would have interfered just as
much after judgment as before—and if both Houses of
Parliament and the Courts of Law bad uniformly acted in this
manner, would the House of Commons now say that they
would recede from the privilege and submit themselves to be
buffettedmad insulted byeveryperson who may choose to do so?
He (the Attorney-General) was aware of the difficulty of
the juncturr,--nobody felt it more deeply then he did; it
had given isira the greatest anxiety, and it was not without
having eieeply pondered the case that he could venture to
advise the course now to be adopted. Let them do their ,
best, and employ all the means the law and Constitution 1
p'ir,ced in their hands for the preservation of their rights.—
(Cheers.) Then they would not be blamed whatever
might be the issue; but it seemed to him that they would
be much blamed by posterity if, without a strenuous effort,
they surrendered the privileges inherited from their fore-
fathers. He (the Attorney-General) was not afraid of
public feeling.—( Hear, hear.) The more the public un-
derritood, the more they would approve of the decided part
proposed to be adopted. In fact, be believed the public
would blame the House of Commons if they were then to
fall back and succumb to the Common Law. '1 here was
some difficulty, he admitted—( Hear, hear, from the Oppo-
sition)—but let them be firm—let them act with vigour--
and no doubt the issue would be successful ; their privi-
leges would be preserved and handed down to posterity.
Sir EDWARD SUGDEN then rose and said, that he
had entered on the subject with a fixed determination to
let nothing aggravate or irritate him, and, in the end, to
come to a conslusion with the greatest moderation. He
owned that few speeches had ever struck him as more ex-
traordinary than that which had just' fallen from the
Hon. and Learned Attorney-General.—( Hear, hear.)
He (Sir E. Sugden) spoke not of the disagreeable posi.
tion in which the Learned Attorney-General had been
placed by being the Attorney-General of the Crown, and
the urger of the resolutions against the law of the land.
The Hon. and Learned Gentleman had told the House
that the opinion of the Judges was illegal, and that theirs
was a just and legal resolution. If they said that they had
privileges, which they contended were perfectly under-
stood, when they said they could support those privi-
leges by the power which the Constitution gave, they did
not then deny that the Judges had made a most legal judg-
ment, but when they determined to leave the question to
the decision of the law, their privileges were become law.
His Hon. Friend had made assertions which he ( Sir E.
Sugden, was bound to say were directly opposite to law, and
the authorities of the Constitution.—( Hear, hear.) The
Learned Attorney-General had told the House that their
privilege depended on necessity, acquiesence, and authority.
He (the Attorney-General) had said that they had been
exercised for at least a couple of centuries, therefore there
was acquiescence, and he presumed necessity. He had
told them that since the case of Sir William Williams
there had been no impeachment of the privileges of the
House. He ( Sir E Sugden) asked what had become of
Burdett and Abbott? Was not that an action against the
Speaker himself, and the Speaker was not dragged before
the Court of Queen's Bench, but he gracefully walked
there accompanied by the whole House of Commons. They
then went to the Queen's Bench with the Speaker—the
Speaker did not withdraw himself from the jurisdiction of
the Court of Law—( Hear, hear)—but submitted the great
legal point to a Court of Justice. It was argued with all
the ability, learning, and zeal of the English bar. It was next
I carried into the Exchequer Chamber, and the Speaker
went before the Judges of the Exchequer Chamber. They
again decided against the plaintiff, but still he was dissa-
tisfied, and carried it to the Lords, whose privileges he
(Sir E. Sugden) said were identical with theirs. In that
case, the great question was the right to commit the Mem-
, bers for libellinglthe House. If ever there was a case
which justified the House standing forth in defence of its
privileges, that was the case. Whereas, in the present
ease they were beset with difficulties ; for they were de-
fending a person out of the House, for an act done by
their authority. He (Sir E. Sugden) apprehended, there-
fore, that his Learned Friend was wrong in his first posi-
tion. As to the second position of the Learned Attorney -
General, he was astonished at the assertion that the case
was provided for by the Bill of Rights. Now that rea-
soning, he was certain, would astonish the profession,
when they heard it stated by her M ijesty's Attorney-
General that the case was provided for by the Bill
of Rights. A more unfounded and more wantonly
incorrect mis-statement ho ( Sir E. Sugden) had never
beard of in the whole course of his existence.—( A laugh.)
The passage to which his Learned Friend referred, was
:beyond all doubt intended to apply to personal freedom
and the rights of Members. As regarded the particular
question in the case of Sir William Williams, the Speaker
had acted by the order of the House, and that was con-
sidered one of the privileges provided for by the Bill of
Rights. But actions were brought against the printers in
that case.

, Lord HO WIC K—Not against the printer of the House.
Sir E. SUGDEN—Yes, against the printer of the
House, and some thousands were recovered. His Hon.
and Learned Friend, the Attorney-General, did not pre.
tend to dispute those cases, for it did not appear that he
was aware that they had ever existed.--( A laugh.) Now
his Learned Friend had said—and it was important—that
papers published by order of either House of Parliament,
could give no right of action. The privilege
was defended, but the power was not defended, and his
Learned Friend, the Attorney-General, maintained that
they had the power to determine whatever resolutions
hey thought fit. He (the Learned Attorney_General)
eferred to the case of King and Wright, and said—he ( Sir
Edward Sugden) had taken the words down, for he had
great respect for his Learned Friend's legal knowledge--
that then it was decided that no action could lie for
what was printed by the order of the House.—(The At-
torney. General—" No.")
He was glad his Hon._ Friend had
amended his language, for he had distinctly heard him
say that no action could lie. There had been an applica-
tion in the case to the Court of Queen's Bench for a cri-
minal information. The Noble Lord opposite (Lord John
Russell) had said that the House in that case bad ordered
the Report to be'printed. He ( Sir Edward Sugden) ;said
it was no such thing. It was an order that the
Report should be printed for the use of the Me-
mbers only--he thought, and no one could ever deny,
but that was a privilege. In the Queen's Bench
Lord Kenyon was of opinion that it was a libel. But that
case was different from the case where a Report was pub-
lished to the world generally. The Attorney-General
said the ease of the King and Wright had never been im-
peached—so far from that being the case, it had been fre-
quently disputed, and in particular by Lord Ellen-
borough, in the case of Burdett and Abbott.
1 The Learned Attorney_General had said their resolutions
were binding against the Courts of Law. He ( Sir Ed-
ward) should like to know where was his authority for that
position ? His Hon. and Learned Friend had referred to
Lord Camden. Ho (Sir Edward Sugden) was sure that
Lord Camden never made any such statement as that the
privileges of that House could not be examined into by the
Courts of Law. The Learned Attorney-General, in