XIX. orders, Lords, see p. 148. Chapter This unusual expedition is, in the Lords, at variance with 2 agreement houses. But, though a departure from the usage of Parliament, Informaduring the progress of a bill, will not vitiate a statute, lities in the informalities in the final agreement of both houses have of both been treated as if they would affect its validity. No decision of a court of law upon this question has ever been obtained but doubts have arisen there; and in two modern cases Parliament has thought it advisable to correct, by law, irregularities of this description. It has already been explained that, when one house has made amendments to a bill passed by the other, it must return the bill with the amendments, for the agreement of that house which first passed it. Without such a proceeding, the assent of both houses could not be complete; for, however trivial the amendments may be, the judgment of one house only would be given upon them, and the entire bill, as amended and Pylkington's case, 33 Henry VI. XIX. ready to become law, would not have received the formal Chapter 1 The first case in which a difficulty arose was in the 33rd Henry VI. In the session commencing 29th April, 1450, the Commons passed a bill requiring John Pylkington to appear, on a charge of rape, "by the Feast of Pentecost then next ensuing." It does not appear distinctly whether the bill was even brought into the Commons before that day in the year 1450: but it certainly was not agreed to by the Lords until afterwards. By the law of Parliament then subsisting, the date of an Act was reckoned from the beginning of a session; and the Lords, to avoid this construction, altered the date to "the Feast of Pentecost, which will be in the year of our Lord 1451:" but did not return the bill, so amended, to the Commons. Pylkington appeared before the Exchequer Chamber, to impeach the validity of this Act, "because the Lords had granted a longer day than was granted by the Commons, in which case the Commons ought to have had the bill back." Chief Justice Fortescue held the Act to be valid, as it had been certified by the king's writ to have been confirmed by Parliament; though he added these words to his decision, "peradventure the matter ought to wait until the next Parliament, then we can be certified by them of the certainty of the matter." But Chief Baron Illingworth 1 Year Books, 33rd Henry VI.; Parl. Rep. No. 413, of 1843. XIX. Chapter and Mr. Justice Markham were of opinion that if the amendment made the bill vary in effect from that which was sent up from the Commons, the Act would be invalid. Bill. In 1829, a bill" to amend the law relating to the employ- Factories ment of children in factories," passed the Commons, and was agreed to by the Lords, with an amendment: but instead of being returned to the Commons, it was, by mistake, included in a commission, and received the royal assent. The amendment was afterwards agreed to by the Commons: but, in order to remove all doubts, an Act1 was passed to declare that the Act "shall be valid and effectual to all intents and purposes, as if the amendment made by the Lords had been agreed to by the Commons before the said Act received the royal assent." masters' Fund Bill. In 1843, the Schoolmasters' Widows' Fund (Scotland) Bill Schoolwas returned to the Commons with amendments: but, before Widows' these were agreed to, the bill was removed from the table, without authority from the house, and carried up to the Lords with other bills. The proper indorsement, viz. "A ces amendemens les communes sont assentus," was not upon this bill; yet the omission was not observed, and the bill received the royal assent on the 9th May. After an examination of precedents, this Act was made valid by a new enactment.2 indorse It is a curious fact, in connection with an informality Imperfect of this character, on the face of a bill, that a commission ment. expressly recites that the bills "have been agreed to by the Lords spiritual and temporal, and the Commons, and indorsed by them as hath been accustomed." The informality in this case would therefore appear to have been greater than in that of 1829; because, in the former, the indorsements were complete, and, as they are without date, it would not appear, except from the journals, that the amendment had been agreed to after the royal assent had been given: but in the latter, the agreement of the Commons would be wanting on the face of the record. 1 10 Geo. IV. c. 63. 2 6 & 7 Vict. c. lxxxvi. (local and personal). Informalities in royal assent. XIX. In case of any accidental omission in the indorsement, the Chapter bill should be returned to the house whence it was received; as, on the 8th March, 1580, 23rd Elizabeth, when a schedule was returned to the Commons and the indorsement amended there; because "soit baillé aux seigneurs " had been omitted, and the Lords had therefore no warrant to proceed.1 Having noticed the effect of informalities in the consent of both houses to a bill, the last point that requires any observation is the consequence of a defect or informality in the commission or royal assent. On the 27th January, 1546, when King Henry VIII. was on his death-bed, the lord chancellor brought down a commission under the sign manual, and sealed with the great seal, addressed to himself and other lords, for giving the royal assent to the bill for the attainder of the Duke of Norfolk, which had been passed, Norfolk's with indecent haste, through both houses. Early the next morning the king died, and the duke was saved from the scaffold, but was imprisoned in the Tower during the whole reign of Edward VI. On the accession of Queen Mary, he took his seat in the House of Lords, was appointed to be one of the triers of petitions; and also, by patent, on the 17th August, to be lord high steward for the trial of the Duke of Northumberland. Duke of attainder. 2 In the next session, the Act of Attainder was declared void "remayneth in verie dede as no Acte of Parlyament, but as a bill The same Act declared— "That the lawe of this realme is and alwaies hath byn, that the royall assent or consent of the king or kings of this realme, to any Acte of Parlyament ought to be given in his own royall presence, 1 D'Ewes, 303; 1 C. J. 132; Order and Course of Passing Bills in Parliament, 4to 1641. 21 Mary, No. 27; Introduction to Statutes of Rec. Com. p. 75. Chapter being personallie in the higher howse of Parlyament, or by his letters tion of In 1809, the titles of two bills relating to the town of TransposiWorthing were transposed, and the royal assent signified to titles. both, so incorrectly indorsed, without further notice. But, in 1821, the titles of two local Acts had been, by a similar error, transposed in the indorsement when the bills received the royal assent. Each Act, consequently, had been passed with the title belonging to the other; and the mistake was corrected by Act of Parliament.1 In 1844, there were two Eastern Counties Railway Bills in Parliament. One had passed through all its stages, and the other was still pending in the House of Lords, when on the 10th May the royal assent was given, by mistake, to the latter, instead of to the former. On the discovery of the error, an Act was passed by which it was enacted that when the former Act shall have received the royal assent, it shall be as valid and effectual from the 10th May, as if it had been properly inserted in the commission, and had received the royal assent on that day; and that the other bill shall be in the same state as if its title had not been inserted in the commission, and shall not be deemed to have received the royal assent.2 1 1 & 2 Geo. IV. c. xcv. (local and personal). 27 Vict. c. xix. (local and personal. Royal as sent given by mistake. |
