Essays on the History of Parliamentary Procedure in the House of Commons in Honour of Thomas Erskine May. Edited by PaulEvans. Oxford and Portland, Oregon: Hart. 2017. xvi, 367 pp. £85.00. ISBN 9781509900206.

2018 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 453-455
Author(s):  
Michael Rush
1908 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 515-531
Author(s):  
Edward Porritt

Students of the history and working of representative legislative institutions in every part of the world where these institutions are in existence are under indebtedness to Professor Redlich for the thoroughness and completeness with which he has performed a task never before attempted by any historian of the house of commons. In his scholarly book, published in German in 1905, and now more generally available through Mr. Steinthal's admirable translation into English, supplemented by a chapter of twenty-one pages by Sir Courtenay Ilbert, Professor Redlich has traced the history of house of commons procedure from the earliest days down to the important time-economizing changes which were made in the first and second sessions of the parliament elected in January, 1906.As far as my knowledge goes there are now in existence only two modern books—only two books published since the reform act of 1832—in which any detailed history of parliamentary procedure at Westminster is to be found.


Author(s):  
Rakhshan Kamran

Abstract In December 2007, the House of Commons unanimously supported Jordan’s Principle, a commitment that all First Nations children would receive the health care products, social services, and supports, and education they need, in memory of Jordan River Anderson. However, the process of applying for Jordan’s Principle was convoluted and not transparent, leaving several cases not being responded to. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal found the definition and implementation of Jordan’s Principle to be racist and discriminatory in 2016, ordering the Canadian government to make immediate changes. Failing to make changes to Jordan’s Principle, the Canadian government was found to be noncompliant with the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal orders in 2018. This article provides one case example of Jordan’s Principle that was not responded to, details on the current status of Jordan’s Principle, and information on the recent implementation of the Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families.


2021 ◽  
pp. 0961463X2110212
Author(s):  
Kirill Postoutenko ◽  
Olga Sabelfeld

This article aims to demonstrate that the transition from the mainstream narrative to the interactional history of concepts promises tangible benefits for scholars of social time in general and temporal comparisons in particular. It is shown that the traditionally close alignment of narration with the production of historical consciousness at various levels hinders the study of time as a semantic variable perpetually contested, amended and upheld across society. Alternatively, the references to time made in public settings, allowing for more or less instant reactions (turn-taking) as well as expression of dissenting opinions (stance-taking), offer a much more representative palette of temporal semantics and pragmatics in a given sociopolitical environment. In a particularly intriguing case, the essentially deliberative venue where contestation is supported by both institutional arrangements and political reasons (British House of Commons) is put to test under circumstances commonly known as ‘the post-war consensus’ – the unspoken convention directing opposing political parties to suspend stance-taking regarding the past actions of the government during WWII, its immediate aftermath and its future prospects. As a reliable indicator of this arrangement, the contestation of temporal comparisons between relevant pasts and futures is tested in oppositions reflecting party allegiances (Conservatives vs. Labour vs. Liberals) and executive functions (government vs. opposition) between 1946 and 1952. It is shown that, notwithstanding the prevalence of non-contested statements aimed at preserving interactional coherence and pragmatic functionality of the setting, the moderately active contestation of the adversary’s temporal comparisons in the House of Commons at that time helped all parties, albeit to a different degree, to shape their own political and institutional roles as well as to delegitimize their respective adversaries.


2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-58
Author(s):  
John J Magyar

Abstract The generally accepted belief about the rule prohibiting recourse to legislative history as an aid to statutory interpretation is that it began in the case of Millar v.Taylor in 1769, and it was followed thereafter in England and throughout the United States through to the 20th century. However, all four judges on the panel in Millar v.Taylor considered evidence from the Journal of the House of Commons and changes made to the relevant bill in their opinions. Meanwhile, the case was widely cited for several substantive and procedural matters throughout the 19th century, but it was not cited by a judge as a precedent for the rule against legislative history until 1887. A careful examination of the relevant cases and secondary literature from the 18th and 19th centuries reveals a much more nuanced and complex history to the rule. Its emergence becomes less clear because it is shrouded in judicial silence. Its beginnings must be inferred from a general and often unarticulated principle that lawyers felt free to disregard. Furthermore, the development, refinement, and decline of the rule followed a different timeline in England, the US federal courts and the state courts.


2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 509-527
Author(s):  
Miran Marelja ◽  
Valentino Kuzelj

History of parliamentary development is narrowly tied to the development of fiscal prerogatives of the legislature. This is especially pronounced in the origins and development of the English Parliament. Moreover, we can ascertain that the fight of “medieval taxpayers”, i.e. those partaking in the distribution of power in medieval feudal structures, foreshadows the very foundation of the English Parliament and its precursors – the “assemblies of King’s servants”. In that sense, medieval England’s earliest constitutional documents espouse mechanisms limiting Crown’s autocracy. Later on, the invocation of Parliament’s fiscal prerogatives represented the most efficient form of subverting such absolutism, especially regarding the absolutist tendencies of the Stuarts. Upon establishment of Parliament’s supremacy over the Crown, the Victorian era was marked by the struggle between two houses of Parliament, culminating in early 20th century anent the issue of the Lords’ rejection of the budget bill. Parliament Act of 1911 marks the end of a centuries-long development of Parliament’s fiscal sovereignty, affirming the prerogatives of the House of Commons as the holders of democratic electoral legitimacy.


1963 ◽  
Vol 13 (52) ◽  
pp. 316-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
H.W. McCready

Gladstone’s dramatic commitment of the liberal party to a policy of home rule for Ireland in 1886 was followed by the Grand Old Man’s two attempts at turning his policy into legislation. The first home rule bill, that of 1886, was defeated in the house of commons and then in a general election: the second, that of 1893, was overwhelmed in the house of lords and then dropped by Gladstone’s fourth government. Though the Gladstonian commitment remained and the liberal party continued to be a home rule party — and though the pros and cons of the union of 1800 remained the major structural feature of British party politics — it was not until 1912 that the liberals did anything further about their major Irish policy. For most of the period 1893-1912 they were, of course, impotent in opposition and consequently in no position to take the initiative on home rule. In 1906, however, they won a landslide victory over their unionist opponents and it is striking that this electoral victory and the great impulse it gave to one of the most dynamic governments in the whole history of British liberalism was not followed, as had the last two liberal victories under Gladstone, by the introduction of a third home rule bill. Had the liberal landslide of 1906 been put behind another home rule measure the whole history of the matter would certainly have been radically different. The house of lords would have been easily overwhelmed; the great advance in constitutional reform for Ireland would have been carried in a spirit of liberal reform rather than of political surrender; the development of Sinn Fein would have been frustrated or at least diverted. But the liberal victory of 1906 was not so used. Home rule was postponed and sidetracked and was taken up again only when the liberal party once more desperately needed Irish votes in the budget election which followed the rejection of Lloyd George’s financial measures by the lords in November 1909. The home rule banner was hoisted afresh by Asquith, the prime minister, in his Albert Hall speechof 10 December 1909 and the third home rule bill appeared in due course in 1912 in direct — and significant — succession to the budget and the parliament act for both of which the Asquith government needed Irish support in the commons.


1967 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. J. Jupp

One generalization which can be made about politics in the reign of George III with a fair degree of certainty is that the vast majority of M.P.s did not consider their conduct in the House of Commons as predetermined by the wishes of their electors; they preferred to see themselves as elected as members of Parliament rather than as delegates to Parliament. Moreover, despite the recent concentration of some historians upon the history of Parliament, the discipline of psephology rarely engaged the attention of politicians after a general election. These two attitudes of mind, which together indicated a clear division between electoral and Parliamentary politics, were nowhere more prevalent than in constituencies where landed interests were predominant. These, which comprised the majority in Scotland and Wales, were, after 1801, also thought to predominate in Ireland. This, in fact, was part of the reason why the Whigs at Westminster so firmly opposed the Union during the debates in 1799 and 1800. They argued in effect that in Ireland, as in Scotland, there was little dependence upon electors and a great dependence upon patronage; that the union with Scotland had added a substantial proportion of the forty-five M.P.s to the ranks of the government of the day; and that the union with Ireland would add near a 100 more. In fact the traditional picture of Irish electoral politics between 1801–26 is that, notwithstanding the fact that in Ireland the economic and social position and above all the religious sentiments of the majority of the electors were nowhere more clearly opposed to those of their M.P.s, the constituencies remained firmly controlled by the leading landed, and therefore Protestant, interests, the majority of whom supported every administration. The purpose of this article, however, is to argue that the Catholic vote in Irish constituencies was an integral and important factor in elections before 1820; that it not only played its part at elections but that it also affected in some degree the conduct of Irish M.P.s in the House of Commons towards the question of Catholic emancipation.


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