PARLIAMENTARY PRIVILEGE
PARLIAMENTARY PRIVILEGE: ANCIENT ORIGINS, MODERN RELEVANCE
Parliamentary privilege is integral in allowing exclusive control for Members to speak freely during parliamentary proceedings without fear or favour. However, the scandal involving UK MPs’ expenses in 2009 raised questions over Members using parliamentary privilege to protect them from prosecution. Consequently a Green Paper was published on the subject and a Joint Committee was set up to scrutinize its findings. A former Whip from Margaret Thatcher’s Government, Lord Brabazon of Tara chaired the committee and outlines the findings from the report.
Lord Brabazon of Tara Lord Brabazon of Tara is a British Conservative politician. He entered the House of Lords in 1977, and was a Whip in Margaret Thatcher’s government from 1984-6. He then became a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Transport, holding that post until 1989. He was made a Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and in 1990, he returned to the Department of Transport as Minister of State, holding that post until leaving office at the 1992 general election. From 2002 to 2012 he was Chairman of Committees in the House of Lords
Lord Brabazon of Tara
The rights and immunities of Parliament are collectively known as parliamentary privilege. In the United Kingdom privilege comprises, in brief, the right of the House of Commons and the House of Lords to exclusive control over their own proceedings and, flowing from this, the right of those participating in parliamentary proceedings, whether or not they are members, to speak freely without fear of legal liability or other reprisal. Although the details may vary, similar rights and immunities are found in most Parliaments around the world. There are good reasons for
these privileges. In 1999 a Joint Committee on parliamentary
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privilege stated that Parliament is “the place where ministers are called to account by representatives of the whole nation for their decisions and their expenditure of public money. Grievances, great and small, can be aired, regardless of the power or wealth of those criticized”. Parliamentary privilege ensures that Members of Parliament, and others participating in proceedings, can carry out their duties without fear or favour. Although parliamentary privilege
in the U.K has ancient origins, it came to public attention after a scandal over parliamentary expenses in 2009, which saw three former MPs and one member of the House of Lords claim in court that they were protected from prosecution for false accounting by parliamentary privilege. While this case was still being
considered by the courts, in May 2010, the two political parties comprising the coalition Government undertook to publish a green paper on parliamentary privilege, with the intention of ensuring that it could not be used by Members of either House to evade justice. In the event, the United Kingdom Supreme Court
ruled later in 2010 that privilege gave no protection to Members charged with false accounting, but the government continued its work and the green paper was published in May 2012. I chaired a Joint Committee from December 2012 to June 2013 tasked with scrutinizing the green paper. The government response to our report was published on 18 December.
The extent of free speech in Parliament One of the most concerning proposals in the paper, apparently brought forward in response to the 2010 case, was that legislation should allow prosecuting authorities to disapply Article 9 of the Bill of Rights 1689 (the statutory basis for freedom of speech in Parliament in the United Kingdom) in such a way as to allow evidence relating to proceedings in Parliament to be admitted as evidence in criminal trials. There is undoubtedly a tension
between the public interest in bringing to justice those accused of criminal offences, and the public interest in the absolute protection afforded to
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