Parliamentary privileges

The privileges of Parliament – freedom of speech, the immunity of its members from legal liability for statements made in the House, and the freedom of each House to order its own affairs without interference by the Crown – are an integral part of the Westminster System, going back to Article 9 of the Bill of Rights 1689. The immunity of members has occasionally been used to good effect by ‘whistleblowers’ seeking to expose wrongdoers whose actions might otherwise be difficult to express under English libel and slander laws. Such freedom of speech, however, is but ‘one facet of the broader principle that what happens within Parliament is a matter for control by Parliament alone’. Parliament regulates its own proceedings. Each House adopts its own standing orders and enforces its own rules.

Most Westminster Model constitutions replicate these privileges, either by directly specifying and enumerating them in the constitution, or by conferring on Parliament the power to determine its own privileges – usually with the proviso that, until it does so, the privileges of the House of Commons shall apply. The Constitution of Trinidad & Tobago is a typical example. This states that ‘subject to the provisions of this Constitution, each House may regulate its own procedure’ (Section 56) and that ‘there shall be freedom of speech’ in both Houses ‘subject to the provisions of this Constitution and to the rules and standing orders’ of each House (Section 55). It further provides (Section 55(2)) that ‘No civil or criminal proceedings may be instituted against any member of either House for words spoken before, or written in a report to, the House of which he is a member’ or ‘for the publication by or under the authority of either House of any report, paper, votes or proceedings’. Beyond this, the Constitution gives Parliament the power to prescribe ‘the powers, privileges and immunities of each House and of the members and the committees of each House’ – but until Parliament defines them, those of the United Kingdom House of Commons apply. Similar references to the House of Commons are found in the Constitutions of Nauru (Section 90), and formerly in India (Section 105).