SUSSEX ELECTION PETITION. (Hansard, 4 April 1808)

Mr. C. Wynne
rose, pursuant to notice, to move that the minutes of the committee appointed to try the merits of the Petition against the election and return for the county of Sussex, should be laid before the house. As the motion was one rather unusual in its nature, he thought himself called on to state the grounds on which it was made. A motion was made, before the committee was appointed, for an exchange of the lists of objectionable votes on both sides, which motion was negatived. The consequence was, that when the committee met, and proceeded to investigate the merits of the petition of Mr. Sergison, they were obliged to decline entering at all into an examination of its merits, because they considered themselves as precluded, by the resolution of the house, from examining the validity of those 1307 votes which would have been questioned by the petitioner. Nothing was more distant from his mind than to call in question, either the decision of the committee, or any part of their proceedings; but he thought it extremely important, that the standing order of the house, upon which the decision was founded, should be altered, not merely by a resolution of the house, but by act of parliament. And, as a specific ground on which he should afterwards move for leave to bring in a bill for this purpose, he now moved, That the minutes of the proceedings of that committee should be laid upon the table of the house.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer
was of opinion, that before the house acquiesced in the motion which had been now submitted to them, they should be put in possession of facts different from those with which the hon. gent. had prefaced his motion. It was not usual for the house to agree to such a motion, except upon some resolution of the election committee, or upon some report made by this committee to shew its propriety or necessity. With respect to the decision of that committee, he was certainly as averse from questioning its propriety as the hon. gent.; and if he were to deliver an opinion upon the subject, he would say that they had acted right in paying attention to the resolution of the house. Whether the standing order ought to be altered was another question, and one which might be discussed, whether the minutes of the committee were or were not before the house; because, if a doubt existed, either respecting its propriety or interpretation, the proposed alteration might take place, as well upon the existing doubt as upon the proceedings of a committee, in their application to the individual case. He was of opinion, that the proceedings now moved for were not only unnecessary, but that their production would be attended with considerable inconvenience: because the debate which might afterwards take place upon them, would then involve the propriety of the decision of the committee, which, agreeably to the spirit of the Grenville act, ought in no case to be called in question.

§ Mr. Tierney
said, that as he had been a member of the committee on the Sussex election, he should shortly state to the the house the circumstances under which that committee decided upon the merits of the petition; and this statement he prefaced with a declaration, that nothing was fur- 1308 ther from his intention than to find fault with the decision of that committee. He might take upon himself, however, to state, that in consequence of the standing order of the house, the majority of that committee had found themselves placed in a very unpleasant situation. The progress of the business was this; a resolution was passed by the house at the commencement of every session, that when a petition was lodged against a sitting member, the petitioner should call upon the sitting member to exchange lists of the votes against which he meant to object, 21 days before the trial of the election; and, vice versa, that the same rule should be observed by the sitting member towards the petitioner. Mr. Fuller, in the present instance, gave a written notice of his intention not to defend his seat, so the petitioner had not thought it necessary to comply with this rule. Some of the electors, however, who had voted for Mr. Fuller, announced their intention of defending it for him. In consequence of this notice, a motion had been made in the house for an exchange of lists, which was negatived; and on the debate which took place on this motion, the right hon. the chancellor of the exchequer had opposed the motion, on the ground that the committee would not be bound by that decision of the house, but would be left at liberty to call whatever evidence they might think proper, though on this evening he had given it as his opinion, that they did right in attending to the resolution of the house. After the committee met to decide upon oath on the merits of the election, and when Mr. Sergison's counsel tendered a list of 500 votes to which he meant to object, the counsel for the other party objected that the committee, by the standing order of the house, could not admit any evidence upon the inadmissibility, of these votes, because the lists had not been previously exchanged; and the committee, he believed from the most honourable motives, had sustained the objection. Under these circumstances, the committee had only to choose between one of three decisions: to declare the election void, which they could not do because this was not a prayer of the petition; or that Mr. Sergison ought to have been returned, which they could not do because his opponent, Mr. Fuller, had a majority upon the poll; or to do what he believed they did most conscientiously and sincerely, to decide that they felt themselves obliged to 1309 declare. Mr. Fuller duly elected because they did not consider themselves at liberty, consistently with the order of the house, to enter into an examination of the votes, against which Mr. Sergison meant to object, and by overthrowing which he was firmly convinced that he should be able to establish his own election. Such were the circumstances in which the committee was placed: a situation which, he was convinced, a majority of that committee had felt to be a very unpleasant one: and in these circumstances his hon. friend had moved for the minutes of the proceedings of the committee, with a view to ground upon those proceedings an act of parliament for the purpose of remedying a hardship which seemed to be felt on all sides, by enacting, that in future the lists of objectionable votes between the petitioner and the sitting member shall be peremptorily exchanged.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer
explained, that when he said that the committee had done right in attending to the resolution of the house, he did not mean the decision of the house with regard to an exchange of lists in the present case, but the standing order of the house regulating their exchange to 21 days before the trial of the election.

§ Sir T. Turton
allowed that there was a great hardship in the present case, which ought to be prevented from recurring in future, by an alteration in the law: but he objected to the present motion, as tending to call in question the decision of the committee, and thus to destroy the purity of the Grenville act.
After some observations from earl Temple, Mr. Graham, and Mr. Ponsonby,