Judicial Committee of the Privy Council

“ Why was Mr Johnson’s counsel not allowed to address the Committee? Under the rules of the House, only witnesses are permitted to address select committees. A lawyer representing a client is not a witness. No select committee appointed under public business standing orders, as is the Committee of Privileges, is permitted to hear Counsel without specific authorisation from the House. No proposal for the Committee to hear Counsel has been put to the House by the Government or any Member. ”

“ Numerous as are the members of the committee, the quorum is three. One or more of the lords of appeal in ordinary usually attend at every hearing, but the composition of the committee is very fluctuating. Appeals from the British dominions abroad lie in criminal as well as civil matters. The right of appeal is regulated as to most possessions by order in council, and in some cases is limited by imperial or colonial statute. Appeals are on fact as well as on law, but the committee rarely if ever disturbs the concurrent judgments on facts of two colonial courts. ”

“ It is clear that any future Judicial Committee could overrule this decision; and so might even any inferior court subject however to the consequences of an ultimate appeal against their decision, to which appeal the Judicial Committee itself is not liable. In truth, where the House of Lords makes in a civil suit, a decision contrary to the rules of law, the courts of law very soon, although they do not expressly overrule it, make it practically inoperative by distinguishing every case which comes before them from it, however minute such distinctions may be ”

“ The need for a strong central court directly inspired by the king, which could administer justice without respect of persons, was so great, that the constitutional danger of establishing an autocratic judicial committee, untrammelled by the ordinary rules of law, escaped notice at the time. ”

“ The procedures in this inquiryThe procedures in this inquiry 10. The House’s procedures for dealing with cases of privilege are long-established and we have worked within these procedures. Committees do not have power to hear Counsel, unless they have been given it by the House. They must proceed in an inquisitorial way. However, as has been done before, given the seriousness of this case, the Committee agreed and published a procedure for the investigation, setting out both the way in which evidence would be gathered, and the way in which it would be shared with Mr Johnson. ”

“ A Member of the Judiciary must be a person of proven competence, integrity, probity, and independence. Section 8. (1) A Judicial and Bar Council is hereby created under the supervision of the Supreme Court composed of the Chief Justice as ex officio Chairman, the Secretary of Justice, and a representative of the Congress as ex officio Members, a representative of the Integrated Bar, a professor of law, a retired Member of the Supreme Court, and a representative of the private sector. ”

“ A Judicial Service Commission with an ethnically balanced composition shall be established. It shall be made up of five members nominated by the Executive, three judges of the Supreme Court, two magistrates from the National Department of Public Prosecutions, two judges from the resident magistrates’ courts and three members of the legal profession in private practice. The judges, magistrates and members of the legal profession shall be chosen by their peers. All members of the Commission shall be approved by the Senate. ”

“ It is found impossible for parliament to enact long and intricate measures dealing with departmental detail, hence a general measure is passed and the privy council is authorized under the act to draw up orders in council which of course have the full force of law. This power is exercised usually by committees to which matters are referred by the Crown in council, the departments of state concerned settling the details. ”

“ Should the procedure concerning legal action against a serving or former member of the Cabinet or Undersecretary not reach completion for any other reason whatsoever, including the statute of limitations, the Parliament may, at the request of the person itself or of its heirs, establish a special committee for investigating the charges in which highest judicial functionaries may also participate. ”

“ No Court of Law can be instituted except by law. One Court of Appeal for the whole Kingdom is to be instituted at the Capital. The sittings of all tribunals shall be public, except in cases when the tribunal judges that this would be prejudicial to order or decency. "The Presidents and the members of the Courts of Justice will be chosen in the manner decreed by the law of the Ministry of Justice, and will be appointed by virtue of a royal Firman." No judge may be suspended, temporarily, or permanently, without a trial or proof of offence. ”

“ The only thing to be done is to appoint an officer empowered to carry out the decree of the Court. Of course if the Irish Ministry are bent on enforcing the judgment, if the Exchequer Court, whose judgment, it may be, has been overruled, is zealous in supporting the authority of the Privy Council, if the Irish people are filled with reverence for tribunals which are really English Courts, all will go well. ”

“ To a greater extent than in other types of cases, a judge in successive NGI proceedings will generally have the opportunity to become closely acquainted with the intricacies and nuances of the NGI committee's record of treatment and behavior. If the judge anticipates that the committee will remain institutionalized, there may be a lesser need to open the hearing to the public because there is a smaller risk of the damage to the public's sense of justice, so fervently invoked by the Court. ”

“ Under the old system, when the Courts of Common Pleas, Exchequer, and Queen's Bench existed, each division had a chief who was responsible for the work of his court and the mode in which it was administered. The judges now hold a meeting, at which they make their own arrangements for circuits and for appointments to the various courts. Although the Lord Chief Justice is supposed to control the order of work, the judges in effect have a free hand as regards their own duties. ”

“ The king's council members who are not peers, in particular the justices and the Masters of the Chancery, are summoned by the House of Lords only as mere assistants. Parliament can change the common law by statute. The right of a peer to be tried for capital crimes by a court composed of his peers was established. There is a widespread belief that all the peers are by right the king's councilors.
No attorney may practice law and also be a justice of assize. No justice may take any gift except from the king nor give counsel to any litigant before him. ”

“ As society becomes more advanced and complicated, the judicial power can no longer be exercised by the Assembly itself, while it would be against every democratic instinct to leave it in the arbitrary power of individual magistrates. Other Committees of the Assembly, Juries on a gigantic scale, with a presiding magistrate as chairman rather than as Judge, are therefore set apart to decide causes and to sit in judgment on offenders. Such is pure Democracy, the government of the whole people and not of a part of it only, as carried out in its full perfection in a single city. ”

“ Judges of the Supreme Court shall be fit and proper persons appointed by the President acting on the advice of the Judicial Service Commission: Provided that the appointment of acting judges shall be as may be provided for in an Act of Parliament. ”

“ It is appropriate to allow the senior judges of the Supreme Court of Justice under the law on criteria for appointment and tenure of senior judges to participate in forming the chambers in charge of the criminal cases against political office holders. ”

“ But if the Court has jurisdiction to determine the true scope of a Commission's inquiry and require the Commission to keep within that scope there are obvious arguments that it should have a corresponding jurisdiction in the matter of findings. A vital part of the constitutional role of the Courts is to ensure that all public authorities, whether they derive their powers from statute or the prerogative, act within the limits of those powers. ”

“ If a member of the Executive Board no longer fulfils the conditions required for the performance of his duties or if he has been guilty of serious misconduct, the Court of Justice may, on application by the Governing Council or the Executive Board, compulsorily retire him. ”

“ Notwithstanding their important Constitutional Council, everybody knows that the whole movements of their Government, where a Council is consulted at all, are directed by their Cabinet Council, composed entirely of the principal officers of the great departments; that when a Privy Council is called, it is scarcely ever for any other purpose than to give a formal sanction to the previous determinations of the other, so much so that it is notorious that not one time in a thousand one member of the Privy Council, except a known adherent of administration, is summoned to it. ”

“ We should be able to devise means equally sure of arriving at a result just in itself, and satisfactory to all. The considerations in favor of a judicial committee of the two Houses are cogent, though they may not be conclusive. They are, the necessity of a speedy decision, and the desirableness of keeping, if possible, the ordinary courts out of contact with questions of the greatest political significance. ”

“ Heavily burdened with debt at the outset of the reign, distracted by plague, fire, and foreign war during the years from 1665 to 1668, the kingdom needed the services of all its statesmen, and even the most selfish politician must have realized the need of reorganization. Acting upon a suggestion which Clarendon himself had made to the King, the Privy Council in 1667 began by strengthening its own committee system, and on January 31, 1668, established four standing committees—for foreign affairs, military affairs, trade and plantations, and petitions and grievances. ”

“ Though the real security for an honest court of justice must be found in their responsibility to parliament and to public opinion, it was evident that their tenure in office must, in the first place, cease to be precarious, and their integrity rescued from the severe trial of forfeiting the emoluments upon which they subsisted. In the debates previous to the declaration of rights, we find that several speakers insisted on making the judges' commissions quamdiu se bene gesserint, that is, during life or good behaviour, instead of durante placito, at the discretion of the Crown. ”

“ The High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council of Republika Srpska shall ensure the autonomy, independence, impartiality, competence and efficiency of the Republika Srpska judiciary and of the prosecutorial service. The responsibilities of the High Judicial Council shall include, but shall not be limited to, the appointment, discipline and removal of judges, apart from the Judges of the Constitutional Court of the Republika Srpska, and shall also include public prosecutors and deputy public prosecutors in the Republika Srpska. ”

“ Should the Court of Justice so request, the Council may, by means of a unanimous vote, increase the number of advocates-general and make the requisite amendments to Article 139, third paragraph.
Article 139 The judges and the advocates-general shall be chosen from among persons of indisputable independence who fulfil the conditions required for the holding of the highest judicial office in their respective countries or who are jurists of a recognised competence; they shall be appointed for a term of six years by the Governments of Member States acting in common agreement. ”

“ In Scotland a system prevails by which every prisoner can secure the services of counsel; whereas in this country they are left entirely to their own resources, and there can be little doubt that a miscarriage of justice is too often the result. It has often been advocated that the jurisdiction of Quarter Sessions should be extended so as to include some of those more serious cases that can now only be tried before a judge of assize; and this would undoubtedly relieve the pressure on the High Court judges. ”

“ To inquire into the conduct of the judges when confidence is evidently wanting, is the only true way to secure the respectability of the Judiciary. If that necessary confidence is withdrawn without cause, an official inquiry will restore confidence and the usefulness of the judges. This observation is supported by precedent and parliamentary usage. In that country from which precedents are so frequently sought, one precedent offers itself to recollection. In the year 1730, a committee of the British House of Commons was appointed to examine the jails. ”

“ The leading common-law work of the High Court is practically divided among a dozen or so eminent Queen's counsel. It is a matter of common complaint that the leaders accept briefs, knowing well at the time they receive them that they will not be able to attend to them. ”

“ I think it is impossible for a Committee, however hard its Members try, to perform the roles of investigator, prosecutor and judge/jury. That is of course a separate matter, and participants in any process are entitled to raise such objections. I trust and hope that those objections will be considered and addressed in full on their merits. But that in no sense undermines my trust and belief that the Committee will address the evidence with integrity and with impartiality. ”