UNION OF POST OFFICE WORKERS (RELATOR PROCEEDINGS) (Hansard, 27 January 1977)

§ Mr. Christopher Price

I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 9, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely, today's Appeal Court judgment which seeks to review the discretion of the Attorney-General, who ought to be answerable to this House alone. I do not think that anyone would gainsay that this is a specific and important matter. It concerns the very jurisdiction of the House of Commons and the proper boundaries that we should lay down between the High Court of Parliament and the High Court of Justice.

I also urge that this urgent matter should be considered forthwith so that Back Bench Members can have their say without the Front Benches and the lawyers fixing up some later debate between themselves. Everyone else in Britain—the newspapers, television and the Appeal Court judges themselves—has contributed during the past 10 days to a public debate on this issue. The House of Commons alone has kept silent, restrained by our self-denying ordinance about sub judice rules. As a result the public debate has 1728 been one-sided because Parliament has been unable to put its own point of view.

This is an issue where the privileges of the House of Commons are at stake. It is essential that the wider implications should be aired immediately in this House to show the country at large that this democratic institution of the House of Commons is not prepared to stand idly by and have its rights over-ridden by the judiciary.

There remains the question of sub judice. I understand that leave has been given to appeal to the House of Lords, but notices have not yet been issued and may not be issued for some time. The whole purpose of our sub judice rule is to prevent our debating anything in this House that might injure the traditional balance between Parliament and the courts. But, for better or worse, in this case the balance has been put in the melting-pot by the Court of Appeal.

Enough has already been said by the Appeal Court judges and the Attorney-General to ensure that that balance is now in jeopardy. In particular, statements have been made in the courts stating that the only power we have in the House of Commons is to reduce the Attorney-General's salary by £100. Statements have been made by Lord Denning to the effect that the judges have the power in their breasts—as he put it—to define this area of the law.

I submit that the 1972 Resolution of the House on sub judice, which instructs Mr. Speaker to take into account the gravity of the issue where ministerial discretion is involved, together with Mr. Speaker's ruling to me on Tameside in 1976, gives ample discretion to allow us to debate the issue, whether or not notices of appeal have been issued.

Failure to debate this issue can only give the impression to the country at large that Parliament is impotent and is willing to stand idly by as its privileges are eroded. Such an impression cannot be good for democracy in Britain. For that reason I submit that we should debate this matter at the earliest opportunity.