A member of the House of Representatives was offered 5,000 rupees for writing to the Minister of Lands and Development withdrawing an application previously made to the Minister to acquire an estate. The offeror was found guilty of offering a gratification to the member ‘for his doing an act in his capacity as such member’, but the conviction by the magistrate was overturned by the Supreme Court of Ceylon.
Held: The attorney-general’s appeal was allowed. The Board considered the meaning of the phrase ‘proceedings in parliament’.
Viscount Radcliffe said: ‘their Lordships are now in a position to address themselves to the facts of this appeal. They approach them on the basis . . that in considering whether the inducement offered by the . . respondent to . . the member was offered to induce him to act in his capacity as such member, the inquiry is not confined to ascertaining whether he was to do something specifically assigned as a member’s function in the Constitution Order or something which was actually a proceeding on the floor of or in the precincts of the House. They recognise that there are many things which a member may be invited to do because he is a member and enjoys as such a status and prestige which supply the motive of the invitation but in doing which he would not be acting in his capacity as a member. But, with this recognition made, they are of the opinion that the circumstances of any particular case may show that in the light of prevailing practices or conventions observed by members of the House some act for which an inducement has been offered is sufficiently closely bound up with and analogous to a proceeding in the House as to be properly described as done by a member in his capacity as such’. And
‘What has come under inquiry on several occasions is the extent of the privilege of a member of the House and the complementary question, what is a ‘proceeding in Parliament’? This is not the same question as that now before the Board, and there is no doubt that the proper meaning of the words ‘proceedings in Parliament’ is influenced by the context in which they appear in article 9 of the Bill of Rights (1 Wm and M, Sess,. 2, c.2); but the answer given to that somewhat more limited question depends upon a very similar consideration, in what circumstances and in what situations is a member of the House exercising his ‘real’ or ‘essential’ function as a member? For, given the proper anxiety of the House to confine its own or its members’ privileges to the minimum infringement of the liberties of others, it is important to see that those privileges do not cover activities that are not squarely within a member’s true function.’
Viscount Radcliffe
[1963] AC 103
Bill of Rights 1869
Commonwealth
Cited by:
Cited – Jennings v Buchanan PC 14-Jul-2004
(New Zealand) (Attorney General of New Zealand intervening) The defendant MP had made a statement in Parliament which attracted parliamentary privilege. In a subsequent newspaper interview, he said ‘he did not resile from his claim’. He defended the . .
Cited – Jennings v Buchanan PC 14-Jul-2004
(New Zealand) (Attorney General of New Zealand intervening) The defendant MP had made a statement in Parliament which attracted parliamentary privilege. In a subsequent newspaper interview, he said ‘he did not resile from his claim’. He defended the . .
Cited – Regina v Morley; Regina v Chaytor; Regina v Devine; Regina v Lord Hanningfield CC 11-Jun-2010
(Southwark Crown Court) The defendants faced charges of false accounting in connection with expense claims as members of parliament, three of the House of Commons and one of the Lords. Each claimed that the matter was covered by Parliamentary . .
Cited – Chaytor and Others, Regina v CACD 30-Jul-2010
The defendants had been members of the Houses of Commons and of Lords. They faced charges of dishonesty in respect of their expenses claims. They now appealed a finding that they were not subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of Parliament under . .
Cited – Chaytor and Others, Regina v SC 1-Dec-2010
The defendants faced trial on charges of false accounting in connection in different ways with their expenses claims whilst serving as members of the House of Commons. They appealed against rejection of their assertion that the court had no . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Constitutional
Leading Case
Updated: 02 November 2021; Ref: scu.199234