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, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons. The three parts acting together to legislate may be described as the King-in-Parliament. 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.
The Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 are two Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which form part of the constitution of the United Kingdom. Section 2(2) of the Parliament Act 1949 provides that the two Acts are to be construed as one.
Hansard is the transcripts of parliamentary debates in Britain and many Commonwealth countries. It is named after Thomas Curson Hansard (1776–1833), a London printer and publisher, who was the first official printer to the Parliament at Westminster.
John Campbell, 1st Baron Campbell, PC, FRSE was a British Liberal politician, lawyer and man of letters.
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 Denman, 1st Baron Denman, was an English lawyer, judge and politician. He served as Lord Chief Justice between 1832 and 1850.
The privilege of peerage is the body of special privileges belonging to members of the British peerage. It is distinct from parliamentary privilege, which applies only to those peers serving in the House of Lords and the members of the House of Commons, while Parliament is in session and forty days before and after a parliamentary session.
MacCormick v Lord Advocate 1953 SC 396 was a Scottish constitutional law case and Scottish legal action on whether Queen Elizabeth II was entitled to use the numeral "II" as her regnal number in Scotland, as there had never been an earlier Elizabeth reigning in Scotland.
Parliamentary privilege is a legal immunity enjoyed by members of certain legislatures, in which legislators are granted protection against civil or criminal liability for actions done or statements made in the course of their legislative duties. It is common in countries whose constitutions are based on the Westminster system.
Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, commonly known as the Labouchere Amendment, made "gross indecency" a crime in the United Kingdom. In practice, the law was used broadly to prosecute male homosexuals where actual sodomy could not be proven. The penalty of life imprisonment for sodomy was also so harsh that successful prosecutions were rare. The new law was much more enforceable. Section 11 was repealed and re-enacted by section 13 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956, which in turn was repealed by the Sexual Offences Act 1967, which partially decriminalised male homosexual behaviour.
Pepper v Hart [1992] UKHL 3, is a landmark decision of the House of Lords on the use of legislative history in statutory interpretation. The court established the principle that when primary legislation is ambiguous then, in certain circumstances, the court may refer to statements made in the House of Commons or House of Lords in an attempt to interpret the meaning of the legislation. Before this ruling, such an action would have been seen as a breach of parliamentary privilege.
The Parliamentary Papers Act 1840 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Act was passed in response to the case of Stockdale v Hansard where it was held that the House of Commons enjoyed no privilege as to publications under its authority circulated beyond Members of Parliament.
John Joseph Stockdale was an English publisher and editor with something of a reputation as a pornographer. He sought to blackmail a number of public figures over the memoirs of society courtesan Harriette Wilson, drawing the notorious retort from the Duke of Wellington, Publish and be damned! He also famously sued the parliamentary reporter Hansard over an allegation that he had published an indecent book and became involved in an important constitutional clash between parliament and the courts that ultimately brought about a change in the law.
John Roberton was a Scottish physician and social reformer. A radical and fringe figure in the medical profession, he is best remembered for advocating the founding of a medical police to promote health and social welfare and for authoring a book that became the centre of a notorious legal case.
Erskine May is a parliamentary authority originally written by British constitutional theorist and Clerk of the House of Commons, Thomas Erskine May.
Frederic Festus Kelly was a high official in the British Post Office. He was also the founder of Kelly & Co., which published the Kelly's Directory, a sort of Victorian-era "Yellow Pages" that listed all businesses, tradespeople, local gentry, landowners, charities, and other facilities located in a particular village, city or town.
The Statute Law Revision Act 1872 , also known as the Statute Law Revision Act 1872, is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that repealed for the United Kingdom enactments from 1807 to 1810 which had ceased to be in force or had become necessary. The act was intended, in particular, to facilitate the preparation of the revised edition of the statutes, then in progress.
R v Penguin Books Ltd, was the public prosecution in the United Kingdom of Penguin Books under the Obscene Publications Act 1959 for the publication of D. H. Lawrence's 1928 novel Lady Chatterley's Lover. The trial took place over six days, in No 1 court of the Old Bailey, between 20 October and 2 November 1960 with Mervyn Griffith-Jones prosecuting, Gerald Gardiner counsel for the defence and Laurence Byrne presiding. The trial was a test case of the defence of public good provision under section 4 of the Act which was defined as a work "in the interests of science, literature, art or learning, or of other objects of general concern".
Parliamentary privilege in the United Kingdom is a legal immunity enjoyed by members of the House of Commons and House of Lords designed to ensure that parliamentarians are able to carry out their duties free from interference. The privileges are freedom of speech, freedom from arrest on civil matters, freedom of access to the sovereign, and that 'the most favourable construction should be placed on all the Houses' proceedings'. Fair and accurate reporting of the proceedings of parliament is also protected by parliamentary privilege.
The Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921 was an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom, now repealed, which set out the powers and functions of certain Tribunals of Inquiry along with the procedures for the taking of evidence. The Act did not give blanket powers for a tribunal of inquiry to be set up ad hoc. For a tribunal to be established under the Act, the matter in question would need to be one of urgent public significance; and would need to be authorised by the Secretary of State. If these prerequisites were met, such an inquiry would be established with judicial powers—in the same way as the High Court or the Court of Session in Scotland.
