The Irish parliament, 1613–89 by Coleman A. Dennehy

Author:Coleman A. Dennehy [Dennehy, Coleman A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Europe, Great Britain, Stuart Era (1603-1714), Ireland, Renaissance, Law, Government, General
ISBN: 9781526133373
Google: TnS5DwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Published: 2019-05-16T03:25:39+00:00

5

Privilege, precedent, and self-regulation

THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF PRIVILEGE

Parliamentary privilege as practised today both in Ireland and elsewhere is based on medieval precedent. In the medieval period, parliament was a representative body of both church and state, attended by all the senior officers of the state. It was the apex of the judicial arm and had all the senior members of the judiciary in attendance. Parliament was an effective conduit of communication between the monarch and his subjects for the presentation and resolution of grievances in return for the provision of financial assistance. If Helli Koenigsberger was correct to state that the emergence of feudalism highlighted the fact that mutual ‘loyalty between lord and vassal was the psychological cement of early medieval society’, it must be tempered with the advice that the medieval monarch was ‘a leader, not a master … [and] relied on the conscious and willing collaboration of his subjects as the most effective and easiest instrument of success’.1 Parliaments over the centuries were, for the most part, collaborative and consensual in nature.

Occasionally this theory was actually played out in reality, although the various competing interests of those with a stake in parliament naturally pushed for their own needs to be met first and were sometimes a little more reluctant in giving. Whatever their perspective, all could see the fact that in theory, parliaments were of supreme importance to the state and community. It was with this theory in mind, and being cognisant of the practical benefits that could accrue from successful parliamentary meetings, that parliamentary privilege emerged in the medieval period. While such an important meeting was occurring, no other issues could be allowed to obstruct this work. The idea that individual peers or MPs could have their attention diverted from the important business in parliament because of a civil action for debt or some other minor, local, or personal disagreement was not to be countenanced. As John Selden opined in the later 1620s: ‘Priviledge of parliament is to keepe a parliament man free from any disturbance, that he may freely attend the busines of parliament and the kingdom.’2 This is the basic premise behind parliamentary privilege as it developed and evolved. But what was termed ‘privilege’ extended far beyond protection from prosecution during parliament time. Generally any breach of the privilege of a member was treated with the same severity as if it had been an attack on the whole house. In the seventeenth century there was no discernible difference in the attitude of a house in dealing with the privileges of one of its members, regardless of the religious, political, ethnic or regional background of that member.

Because the individual houses had by the first half of the seventeenth century (and probably, for the most part, much earlier) assumed full and sole control of assessing exactly what privilege was and how breaches of it were to be judged and punished, privilege could be and was extended to many more areas. Although during the period these were

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