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Preliminary objections.

XXVI.

allegations. Each allegation should specifically allege a Chapter
non-compliance with the standing orders, and should state
the circumstances of such alleged non-compliance, in clear
and accurate language.

When the agent for a memorial rises to address the Ex-
aminer, the agent for the bill may raise preliminary objec-
tions to his being heard upon the memorial, on any of the
grounds referred to in the standing orders, or on account
of violations of the rules and usage of Parliament, or other
special circumstances. Such objections are distinct from
any subsequent objections to particular allegations. It has
been objected, for example, that a memorial has not been
duly signed, so as to entitle the parties to be heard. No
proof of the signatures, however, is required in any case,
unless there should be some primâ facie reason for doubting
their genuineness. The same rule is applied to the fixing
of a corporate seal. On the 16th February, 1846, an
instruction was given to the committee on petitions for
private bills (the predecessors of the Examiners), not to
hear parties on any petition "which shall not be prepared
in strict conformity with the rules and orders of this
Memorials house."1 And as memorials addressed to the Examiner
subject to
same rules have supplied the place of petitions to the house, com-
plaining of non-compliance with the standing orders, the
Examiners have applied to them all the parliamentary
rules applicable to petitions; 2 and have otherwise followed
the practice of the committees on petitions for private bills.
If no preliminary objection be taken to the general right
ary objec- of the memorialists to appear and be heard, or if it be over-
allegations. ruled, the agent proceeds to read the first allegation in his
memorial. Preliminary objections can be raised to any
allegation; as that it alleges no breach of the standing
orders; that it is uncertain, or not sufficiently specific; or
that the party specially affected has not signed the me-
morial, or has withdrawn his signature. In reference to the
specially latter grounds of objection, it may be explained that by
numerous decisions of the committees on petitions for bills.

as peti

tions.

Prelimin

tions to

Parties

affected.

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XXVI.

Chapter and of the Examiners, the signatures of parties specially affected are required in reference to such allegations only as affect parties personally, and in which the public generally have no interest. Thus if it be alleged that the name of any owner, lessee, or occupier of property has been omitted from the book of reference, or that he has received no notice, the Examiner will not proceed with the allegation, unless the party affected has himself signed the memorial. But in the application of this rule, considerable niceties often arise from the peculiar circumstances of each case.

There are numerous grounds of objection which relate to Objections on points matters concerning the public, and do not therefore require affecting the signatures of parties specially affected. Thus objections the public. to the sufficiency of newspaper notices, and objections to the accuracy of the plans, sections, and books of reference where the errors alleged are patent upon such documents, or are separable from questions relating to property in lands and houses, have always been treated as public objections. The same principle has been applied to objections to the estimate, deposit of money, or declaration; and to allegations that any documents have not been. deposited in compliance with the standing orders. It is for public information and protection that all requirements of this character are to be complied with by the promoters of the bill; and any person is therefore entitled to complain of non-compliance on behalf of the public, without proving any special or peculiar interests of his own.

of merits

Allegations are to be confined to breaches of the standing Questions orders, and may not raise questions impugning the merits excluded. of the bill, which are afterwards to be investigated by Parliament, and by committees of either house. It may be shown, for example, that an estimate is informal, and not such an estimate as is required by the standing orders: but the insufficiency of the estimate is a question of merits, over which the Examiner has no jurisdiction. Again, in examining the accuracy of the section of a proposed railway, the Examiner will inquire whether the surface of the

Decisions

of the Ex

endorsed on the

XXVI.

ground be correctly shown, or the gradients correctly cal- Chapter
culated but he cannot entertain objections which relate to
the construction of the work, its engineering advantages,
its expense, or other similar matters, which will be after-
wards considered by the committee on the bill.

The Examiner decides upon each allegation, explaining to aminers: parties, whenever it is necessary, the grounds of his decision; and he certifies by endorsement on each petition whether petitions, the standing orders have or have not been complied with. municated The petitions, when endorsed, are returned to, and retained in, the Private Bill Office of the House of Commons.

and com

to both houses.

S. O. 71, 77 (H. C.);

When Parliament has met, the decisions of the Examiners 76 (H. L.) upon the petitions for private bills are communicated to both Houses in the following form. In every case of noncompliance, the Examiner certifies his decision to the House of Lords, and reports it to the House of Commons.1 He also certifies his decision to the House of Lords in every case where he has found that the standing orders have been complied with. But to the House of Commons, in cases of compliance, he only reports his decision with regard to those bills that originate in the Lords; as, in the case of bills originating in the Commons upon which the standing orders have been complied with, his endorsement to this effect upon the petitions for these bills is taken as being his report to that house. In every case where he has decided that the standing orders have not been complied with, the Examiner must also certify to the Lords, and report to the Commons, the facts upon which his decision is founded, and any special circumstances. connected with the case.

Special
report from
Examiners,
S. 0.78,

Under standing orders in both houses

in case the Examiner shall feel doubts as to the due construction of 94 (H. C.); any standing order in its application to a particular case, he shall make a special report of the facts, without deciding whether the standing order has, or has not, been complied with;"

78, 84

(H. L.).

1 In practice the Examiner also appends to this report a list of those Lords' bills with regard to which he has certified to the Lords

that the standing orders have not
been complied with. Cf. e.g. Has-
tings Tramways 1905 (160 C. J. 16),
&c.

Chapter and this report is referred to the Standing Orders
Committee.1

XXVI.

The preliminary proceedings before the Examiner having been summarized, the manner of determining in which house each private bill shall be first introduced must also be described.

determin

ing in

which

bill shall

In accordance with standing order No. 79 of the House Manner of of Commons, the Chairman of Ways and Means, or the Counsel to Mr. Speaker, on or before the 28th January, house a in each year, seeks a conference with the Chairman of private Committees of the House of Lords, or with his Counsel, originate. for the purpose of determining in which house the respective private bills shall be first considered.2 The examination of all private bills by these authorities, however, may be said to commence at an even earlier date -as soon as the bills are deposited in December. And throughout their subsequent stages in both houses, all private bills are under the supervision of the Lords' Chairman and the Chairman of Ways and Means.

This supervision of private bills by responsible officers General supervision originated in the Lords, but it will be convenient to advert of all to it generally at this point.

private bills (a) by

The office of Chairman of Committees in the Lords was the Lords' Chairman first constituted in 1800, when the house resolved that and his Counsel; it would, "at the commencement of every session, proceed to nominate a Chairman of Committees of this house." 8 And according to a further resolution, which was passed

1 Great Grimsby Street Tramways Bill, 1900. A special report from the Examiner regarding this bill, proposed to originate in the Lords, was sent in to that house together with the Examiner's certificate on the bill (15th Feb.), and stood referred to the standing orders committee there, in accordance with standing orders 78 and 84 (House of Lords). In the Commons the report was laid on the table and referred to the standing orders committee in that house (26th Feb.). In this case both com

mittees reported (Lords, 5th March;
Commons, 13th March) that the
standing orders had been complied
with, 132 L. J. 36. 70; 155 C. J. 64-5.
95. Cf. also infra, p. 717, note 1.
For standing orders committees see
pp. 716-7 (House of Commons) and
p. 841 (House of Lords).

2 This power having been dele-
gated to the Chairmen of Com-
mittees, their decision as to the
house in which a bill shall originate
is final (Mr. Speaker's ruling, 6th
Feb., 1900, 78 Parl. Deb. 4 s. 695).
3 42 L. J. 636.

XXVI.

at the same time, and is now embodied in No. XLI. of Chapter the Lords' standing orders, the lord so nominated "shall take the chair in all committees upon private bills unless where it shall have been otherwise directed by this house." 1 So far as they are conferred upon him by this and other standing orders, the power and duties of the Lords' Chairman in regard to private bills will be noticed in due course.2 The practical character which his supervision of all private bills has acquired, however, is rather attributable, in part to the fact that it was exercised for fifty years before the House of Commons, in 1851, adopted a similar system-in part, also, to the duty, which in practice rests primarily with the Lords' Chairman, of moving the several stages of private bills in that House. When he moves the second or third reading of a bill, his action is an assurance to the house that in his opinion there is no objection to the passing of that particular stage. If he entertains such an objection, the stage is moved by another lord, the Chairman stating his objection in the course of debate before the sense of the house is taken.3

To facilitate his examination of private bills,1 copies are supplied to the Lords' Chairman and his Counsel, upon its first deposit, of every private bill proposed to be introduced into either house. Copies are again supplied to them of the bill, in its "filled-up" form" as proposed by the promoters to be submitted to a Committee, and at every other stage upon which it is amended, or proposed to be amended, in either house.

1 As to the appointment of other peers to take the place of the chairman during his absence through illness, see supra, pp. 380. 381, and infra, p. 850.

Cf. infra Chapter XXVIII.

3 Moreover, if any lord opposes the second or third reading of a private bill, the stage is moved by another lord-not by the Chairman, who is thus left free to express his opinion in debate. Cf. 153 Parl. Deb. 4 s. 1053.

As to the "Model Bill," or col

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