Chapter business, or immediate influence upon the judgment of tions in bills are In passing private bills, Parliament still exercises its legis- Its funclative functions, but its proceedings partake also of a judicial passing character. The persons whose private interests are to be private promoted appear as suitors for the bill; while those who partly judicial. apprehend injury are admitted as adverse parties in the suit. Many of the formalities of a court of justice are maintained; various conditions are required to be observed, and their observance to be strictly proved; and if the parties do not sustain the bill in its progress, by following every regulation and form prescribed, it is not forwarded by the house in which it is pending. If they abandon it, and no other parties undertake its support, the bill is lost, however sensible the house may be of its value. The analogy which all these circumstances bear to the proceedings of a court of justice, is further supported by the payment of Fees 3 which is required of every party promoting or opposing a private bill, or petitioning for or opposing any particular provision. It may be added that the solicitation of a bill in Parliament has been regarded, by courts of equity, so completely in the same light as an ordinary suit, that the promoters have been restrained, by injunction, from proceeding with a bill, the object of which was held to be to set aside a covenant; 1 or 1 Cf. infra, p. 827, as to "Parties not proceeding with their bill." In 1828, the Manchester and Salford Improvement Bill was abandoned, in committee, by its original promoters; when its opponents, having succeeded in introducing certain amendments, undertook to solicit its further progress. But in another case, the committee would not allow this course to be taken (Minutes, 1859, iii. 84, Cork Butter Market Bill). And, in 1873, the committee on the Kingstown Township Bill, after the commissioners, under their corporate seal, had withdrawn from its promotion, refused to allow them to proceed with it, as individual petitioners (infra p. 819). In the Horncastle Gas Bill, 1876, the pro 2 3 4 moters and opponents agreed in 2 Cf. infra p. 827, n. 5. 3 See infra, Chap. XXXIII. Principles XXV. which was promoted by a public body, in evasion of the Chapter Towns Improvement Act, 1847.1 Parties have also been restrained, in the same manner, from appearing as petitioners against a private bill pending in the House of Lords.2 Such injunctions have been justified on the ground that they act upon the person of the suitor, and not upon the jurisdiction of Parliament; which would clearly be otherwise in the case of a public bill. And acting upon the same principles, Parliament has obliged a railway company, under penalty of a suspension of its dividends, to apply in the next session for a bill to authorize the construction of a line of railway which the company had pledged itself to make, and in good faith to promote it.3 This union of the judicial and legislative functions is not by which Parliament confined to the forms of procedure, but is an important is guided. principle in the inquiries and decision of Parliament, upon the merits of private bills. As a court, it inquires into, and adjudicates upon, the interests of private parties; as a legislature, it is watchful over the interests of the public. The promoters of a bill may prove, beyond a doubt, that their own interests will be advanced by its success, and no one may complain of injury or urge any specific objection; yet, if Parliament apprehends that it will be hurtful to the community, it is rejected as if it were a public measure, or qualified by restrictive enactments, not solicited by the parties. In order to increase the vigilance of Parliament, in protecting the public interests, the chairman of committees in the House of Lords, and the chairman of ways and means in the House of Commons, are entrusted with the peculiar care of unopposed bills, and with a general revision of all other private bills (see pp. 705-8, 753-4, 849); while the agency of the government departments is also applied in aid of the legislature (see p. 754). the 31st May, the lords justices dis- 1 Kingstown Township Bill, 1873; see p. 819. 100 H. D. 3 s. 784 (Hartlepool Infra, p. 817, n. 5 (South XXV. bills pass stages as bills. Chapter In pointing out this peculiarity in private bills, it must, Private however, be understood that, while they are examined and through contested before committees and officers of the house, like the same private suits, and are subject to notices, forms, and public intervals, unusual in other bills; yet in every separate stage, when they come before either house, they are treated precisely as if they were public bills. They are read as many times, and similar questions are put, except when any proceeding is especially directed by the standing orders; and the same rules of debate and procedure are maintained throughout. seded now in some the Pro Order the Private tion Pro In order to explain clearly all the forms and proceedings Necessity for private to be observed in passing private bills, it is proposed to bills superstate them, as nearly as possible, in the order in which they successively arise; but before doing so it is necessary cases (a) by the general to advert briefly to the important modern legislation, by law; (b) by which the necessity for private bills has, in numerous visional cases, been superseded by general laws. As a result of system; the policy pursued in this respect by the legislature, parties and (c) by are now enabled, for a large number of various purposes, Legislato avail themselves of the provisions of public general Acts, cedure instead of having to apply for special powers by the means (Scotland) of a private bill. This policy has been carried out (a) by amendments in the general law which have facilitated various kinds of objects or furthered particular classes of undertakings or interests; (b) by the establishment and extension of the system of "Provisional Orders"; and (c) by the passing, in 1899, of the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act. The following are some of the principal general Acts relating to matters which formerly have been the subjects of private Acts of Parliament, viz. the Tithe Commutation Acts, the Acts for the enfranchisement of copyholds, the Joint-Stock Companies Acts, the Acts for the regulation and management of railway companies, the Settled Estates 1 Cf. for example, 160 C. J. 405, 8th Aug., 1905, when the consideration of the Lords' amendments to a private bill stood adjourned, on the interruption of business, under Act. XXV. and Settled Land Acts, the Acts relating to entail in Scot- Chapter land, the Towns Improvement (Ireland) Act, the Incumbered Estates Act in Ireland, the Endowed Schools Acts, the Naturalization Act, the Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Acts, the Education Acts, the Municipal Corporation Acts, the Local Government Acts for England and Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. By the various statutes which authorize procedure by Provisional Order, many of the Government departments, and in some cases a local authority, are empowered to grant provisional orders, which are practically bills and which have only to be confirmed in an Act of Parliament in order to become law. In most cases, these orders confer powers or secure objects for which a private bill was formerly necessary; and in a later chapter (Chapter XXX.) it is proposed to summarize the purposes for which provisional orders may be granted, the statutes under which various authorities are empowered to grant them, and the procedure in Parliament upon the bills for their confirmation. It should, however, be observed here that, in addition to their powers of granting provisional orders, many government departments have also been invested with powers of administration in matters which otherwise would have been the subject of special legislation, and are empowered, in numerous cases, to grant orders which are not provisional, that is to say, which do not require confirmation in an Act of Parliament. By the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act which was passed in 1899, parties have been provided with a new means of obtaining parliamentary powers in regard to almost every matter "affecting public or private interests in Scotland for which they are entitled to apply" by means of a private bill. The special machinery which has thus, in so large a class of cases, taken the place of procedure by private bill, centres in the powers conferred by the Act, upon the Secretary of Scotland, of granting orders which are subsequently confirmed by Parliament in a bill. The provisions of this Act, however, and the XXV. Chapter system which it has established, will be more conveniently dealt with later (Chapter XXXI.), after the method of passing private bills has been described. gress of bills. In the ensuing chapter it is proposed to describe the Proposed plan of proceedings preliminary to the introduction of a private describing bill into either house, and the duties, with regard to all such the probills, of the Chairman of Committees of the House of Lords private and the Chairman of Ways and Means, who together determine in which house each private bill shall be first introduced. The course of proceedings in the Commons upon a private bill will then be followed throughout from its first introduction in that house (Chapter XXVII.), and, subsequently, the course of proceedings in the Lords upon private ("Local ") bills (Chapter XXVIII.). Those private bills, such as Naturalization, Name, Estate, and Divorce Bills, which have usually originated in the Lords, and which are known as "Personal" bills, will be more conveniently followed-in a later chapter (Chapter XXIX.) -in their course from the Lords to the Commons. |