HC Deb 07 November 1882 vol 274 cc935-6
DR. CAMERON

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been called to the fact that certain persons connected with the Salvation Army have been condemned to fines ranging up to£3, and terms of imprisonment up to sixty days, by the magistrates of Arbroath, for participating in a procession which those magistrates, under a dormant Scottish Statute of 1606, had proclaimed as an unlawful convention, and that an appeal against the magistrates' decision has just been dismissed by the Scottish Justiciary Appeal Court; whether it is a fact that the Court of Queen's Bench very recently pronounced Salvation Army processions in themselves to be perfectly lawful demonstrations; and, whether, bearing in mind the circumstance that, until judgment was pronounced in the present case, there was no reason for supposing the Scottish Law regarding such demonstrations to differ from the English, he will consider whether the sentences in these particular cases should be remitted?

THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR)

I have been asked by my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary to answer this Question. Attention has been called to the case to which it relates. I am not aware of any authority for holding that the Statute referred to in the Question is dormant; but I do not find that the Judges of the Court of Justiciary based their Judgments upon that Statute. I understand them to have held that the magistrates had the inherent right and power to issue and enforce such a proclamation as they did issue, where they believed that the proceedings against which it was directed would cause a breach of the peace. It is the fact that in a reported case the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice decided that the offence of holding an unlawful assembly had not been committed by certain persons belonging to the Salvation Army. In the case to which this Question relates, it was stated that, in point of fact, the processions held in Arbroath had a tendency to cause, and did cause, a breach of the peace. It appeared that the persons convicted had been duly warned, and I do not find in the papers any evidence that they were ignorant that they were breaking the law. My right hon. and learned Friend requests me to say that he cannot interfere in the case.