An Act to make provision for disqualifying the holders of specified offices for membership of the House of Commons, and to repeal the enactments providing for the disqualification of the holders of offices or places of profit under the Crown and other offices, of persons having pensions from the Crown and of persons contracting with the Crown for or on account of the public service, and certain enactments disqualifying members of that House for holding other offices; to make corresponding provision in respect of the Senate and House of Commons of Northern Ireland; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid.
An Act for declaring what Persons shall be disabled from sitting and voting in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; and also for carrying into effect Part of the Fourth Article of the Union of Great Britain and Ireland, by providing in what cases Persons holding Offices or Places of Profit under the Crown of Ireland shall be incapable of being Members of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the said United Kingdom.
Section 2 limits the number of government officials (specifically, holders of offices listed in Schedule 2) in the House of Commons at any one time to 95. Any appointed above that limit are forbidden to vote until the number is reduced to 95.
Section 4 effectively adds the Crown Stewards and Bailiffs of the Chiltern Hundreds and of the Manor of Northstead to Part III to Schedule 1, thus naming them as offices whose holders are disqualified. These offices are sinecures, used in modern times to effect resignation from the House of Commons. Prior to 1926, this disqualification was due to them being "offices of profit under the Crown", but that disqualification was abolished in 1926 and by s. 1(4) of this Act.
The election to the Commons of a disqualified person is invalid, and the seat of an MP who becomes disqualified is vacated immediately (triggering a by-election). The Privy Council has jurisdiction to determine whether a purported MP is disqualified; the issue may be tried in the High Court, Court of Session or High Court of Northern Ireland as appropriate for the constituency.
Amendments
This Act was amended by subsequent legislation:
The Disqualifications Act 2000, a consequence of the Good Friday Agreement, added the words "other than Ireland", prior to which Irish legislators were disqualified just as any other foreign legislators are. This was to bring them in line with treatment of Commonwealth legislators; however, as of 2022[update] no one has taken advantage of this privilege.
Various enactments have amended the lists of disqualified bodies and offices, particularly as they have come in or out of existence or fallen out of government control.
The Representation of the People Act 1981 provides for the automatic disqualification of parliamentary candidates or expulsion of sitting MPs if they serve an imprisonment of over a year. The nomination of a disqualified candidate is voided. The election of such a candidate or the re-election of an MP thus imprisoned will also be voided, leading to a by-election in their constituency.
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest institutions in the world, its origins lie in the early 11th century and the emergence of bicameralism in the 13th century.
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 members known as members of Parliament (MPs). MPs are elected to represent constituencies by the first-past-the-post system and hold their seats until Parliament is dissolved.
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, and may also legislate for the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster in London. Parliament possesses legislative supremacy and thereby holds ultimate power over all other political bodies in the United Kingdom and the Overseas Territories. While Parliament is bicameral, it has three parts: the sovereign (King-in-Parliament), the House of Lords, and the House of Commons. In theory, power is officially vested in the King-in-Parliament. However, the Crown normally acts on the advice of the prime minister, and the powers of the House of Lords are limited to only delaying legislation; thus power is de facto vested in the House of Commons.
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members often have a different title. The terms congressman/congresswoman or deputy are equivalent terms used in other jurisdictions. The term parliamentarian is also sometimes used for members of parliament, but this may also be used to refer to unelected government officials with specific roles in a parliament and other expert advisers on parliamentary procedure such as the Senate parliamentarian in the United States. The term is also used to the characteristic of performing the duties of a member of a legislature, for example: "The two party leaders often disagreed on issues, but both were excellent parliamentarians and cooperated to get many good things done."
As a constitutional convention, members of Parliament (MPs) sitting in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom are not formally permitted to resign their seats. To circumvent this prohibition, MPs who wish to step down are instead appointed to an "office of profit under the Crown"; by law, such an appointment disqualifies them from sitting in Parliament. For this purpose, a legal fiction has been maintained where two unpaid sinecures are considered to be offices of profit: Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds, and Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead.
The Peerage Act 1963 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that permits women peeresses and all Scottish hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords and allows newly inherited hereditary peerages to be disclaimed.
In the United Kingdom, representative peers were those peers elected by the members of the Peerage of Scotland and the Peerage of Ireland to sit in the British House of Lords. Until 1999, all members of the Peerage of England held the right to sit in the House of Lords; they did not elect a limited group of representatives. All peers who were created after 1707 as Peers of Great Britain and after 1801 as Peers of the United Kingdom held the same right to sit in the House of Lords.
Thomas James Mitchell was an Irish republican. He was active in the Irish Republican Army and took part in a raid on Omagh barracks in 1954, being captured and imprisoned. While in jail he was twice elected as a Member of the United Kingdom Parliament, but was disqualified and his elections overturned.
In the United Kingdom, a member of parliament (MP) is an individual elected to serve in the House of Commons, the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
An election petition refers to the procedure for challenging the result of a Parliamentary election.
From 1708 to 1926, members of parliament (MPs) of the House of Commons of Great Britain automatically vacated their seats when made ministers in government and had to successfully contest a by-election in order to rejoin the House; such ministerial by-elections were imported into the constitutions of several colonies of the British Empire, where they were likewise all abolished by the mid-20th century. The requirement of MPs to rejoin the House upon ministerial appointment arose from 17th-century ideas of the independence of the House from the influence of the Crown, which appoints the ministers. Unlike in the United States, whose constitution took such ideas to the extreme by fully separating the executive and legislative branches, support for some royal patronage meant that whilst MPs were barred from keeping their seats when made ministers, ministers holding an existing portfolio were not required to surrender their office when elected as an MP. This resulted in a compromise where newly-appointed ministers had to resign from the House, but could keep their office if they won a by-election back into it.
An office of profit means a position that brings to the person holding it some financial gain, or advantage, or benefit. It may be an office or place of profit if it carries some remuneration, financial advantage, benefit etc.
The Disqualifications Act 2000 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It gained royal assent on 30 November 2000. The Act extends a privilege to Ireland whereby persons elected to sit in its houses of parliament are eligible, if elected/appointed, to sit in a house of the parliament of the United Kingdom also. This privilege is extended to all countries in the Commonwealth of Nations.
Charles Beattie was a Northern Irish farmer and auctioneer. Active in the Ulster Farmers' Union and in Unionist associations, he achieved senior office in the Orange Order and the Royal Black Institution and served on Omagh Rural District Council from 1952 until his death. He is principally known for an exceptionally brief career as a Member of the United Kingdom Parliament representing Mid Ulster; he did not win an election, but was declared elected when his opponent was disqualified. However, a few weeks after he took his seat, he was discovered to be holding an "office of profit under the Crown" which disqualified him.
The Representation of the People Act 1981 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It creates the provision for the automatic disqualification of an MP if they are imprisoned for over a year, leading to a by-election being held in their constituency.
The Court of Disputed Returns in Australia is a special jurisdiction of the High Court of Australia. The High Court, sitting as the Court of Disputed Returns, hears challenges regarding the validity of federal elections. The jurisdiction is twofold: (1) on a petition to the Court by an individual with a relevant interest or by the Australian Electoral Commission, or (2) on a reference by either house of the Commonwealth Parliament. This jurisdiction was initially established by Part XVI of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1902 and is now contained in Part XXII of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918. Challenges regarding the validity of State elections are heard by the Supreme Court of that State as the State's Court of Disputed Returns.
On 9 June 2011, a by-election was held for the United Kingdom constituency of Belfast West. The by-elected was prompted by the resignation of the constituency's Member of Parliament, Gerry Adams in advance of his candidacy in the 2011 general election in the Republic of Ireland.
A police and crime commissioner is an elected official in England and Wales responsible for generally overseeing police forces. A police, fire and crime commissioner (PFCC) is an elected official in England responsible for generally overseeing both police forces and fire services. Commissioners replaced now-abolished police authorities. The first incumbents were elected on 15 November 2012.
The Representation of the People Act, 1951 is an act of Parliament of India to provide for the conduct of election of the Houses of Parliament and to the House or Houses of the Legislature of each State, the qualifications and disqualifications for membership of those Houses, the corrupt practices and other offences at or in connection with such elections and the decision of doubts and disputes arising out of or in connection with such elections. It was introduced in Parliament by law minister Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. The Act was enacted by the provisional parliament under Article 327 of Indian Constitution, before the first general election.
Defection by legislators occurs in many democracies. It can be argued that they can undermine the stability of the cabinet, which is dependent on the support of elected legislators. The argument follows that such instability can amount to a betrayal of the people's mandate, as voiced at the most recent prior election.
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