HL Deb 17 March 1835 vol 26 cc1055-6
Lord Brougham

wished to ask the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, whether the Bill which was introduced the other night by the Attorney-General into the House of Commons, comprehended any measure for the abolition of the Court of Delegates? The noble and learned Lord was proceeding to state what the Attorney-General was reported to have said, when

The Lord Chancellor

rose to order, as it was irregular for noble Lords to comment upon observations supposed to have been delivered in the other House of Parliament. He believed, too, that the supposition was a mistake.

Lord Brougham

admitted the irregularity; but he said he had heard from friends who were in the House of Commons, that the hon. and learned Gentleman had spoken in the way he had supposed. Such a measure would, in itself certainly be most useful measure; but introduced at the present moment, it would be a most useless measure. The Court of Delegates was abolished by a bill which he himself had introduced in Parliament, which was passed on the 14th of August, 1833, to take effect in 1834, and by which the hearing of appeals in Ecclesiastical Causes was transferred from the Court of Delegates to the Privy Council. This was, therefore, not only a hatching of eggs, but a sitting upon his chickens; that was a dangerous operation, and had a tendency to destroy the chickens altogether.

The Lord Chancellor

was satisfied that the report alluded to by the noble and learned Lord was a mistake. There was no such clause in the Bill. The Attorney-General could not have said what was supposed. He was quite satisfied that the Attorney-General knew every thing connected with the Privy Council; and he presumed, that the mistake had arisen from the circumstance that the Bill introduced by the hon. and learned Gentleman did abolish several courts, and transferred their jurisdiction. He apprehended that the persons who published accounts of what was said, not being quite aware of the law on this subject, had misapprehended the hon. and learned Member.

Lord Brougham:

The person he had applied to on the subject was a learned Commissioner of the Ecclesiastical Court, who said that he had endeavoured to set the hon. and learned Gentleman right, but that he could not do so.