LORD DENMAN,in pursuance of a Notice, asked the Lord Chancellor, Why the names of all the Peers who sat on the Appeal of Bradlaugh v. Clarke, on 5th and 6th March and on 9th of April, is not on the rota of Peers kept in the Princes' Chamber?
THE LORD CHANCELLORMy Lords, in answer to the Question of the noble Lord, I have to state that the Paper which is put up in the Princes' Chamber, and which the noble Lord describes as the "rota of Peers," has been for many years past simply a record of attendance of those Peers who have filled judicial office, and are commonly called Law Lords. The noble Lord is well aware that since the case of O'Connell there has been a general consent in the House that it is better that the judicial proceedings should be conducted exclusively by those who have filled judicial office, or who, in respect to their information as trained lawyers, are regarded as Law Lords. The consequence of this is, that this list is exclusively the list of attendances of Lords that are so called; and that such a record should be kept is most proper, more especially since the year 1876, when, by the Appellate Jurisdiction Act, 193 it was required that there should be at least three Law Lords who had filled certain judicial offices present for the purpose of determining appeals. Having answered the Question of the noble Lord, I may, perhaps, be excused for adding, with reference to some animadversions of which I myself appear to have been made the subject "elsewhere," that, until the question raised by that appeal— "Bradlaugh v. Clarke"—came before your Lordships' House, I never had occasion to consider, and never did consider, it; nor had I, until I heard the arguments in the ordinary course of my judicial duty, formed any opinion upon it. It has been supposed, because I was Attorney General in 1866, that I must have been personally responsible for the preparation of the Oaths Bill of that year. The fact is not so. That Bill was not in my charge; I had nothing to do with the preparation of it. It was under the charge of, and introduced into the House of Commons by, the then Home Secretary, Sir George Grey; and the only other name upon the back of it was that of the then Chancellor of the Exchequer. No controversy whatever arose in the House of Commons as to any of its provisions, except the matter of the Oath itself.