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Section 13.—: Security for the House against Disturbance by Members. † - Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 3 [1843]

Edition used:

The Works of Jeremy Bentham, published under the Superintendence of his Executor, John Bowring (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1838-1843). 11 vols. Vol. 3.

Part of: The Works of Jeremy Bentham, 11 vols.

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Section 13.—

Security for the House against Disturbance by Members.

Art. I. In so far as such exclusion is necessary for securing its proceedings against disturbance by annoyance in any shape, the House has at all times power to exclude any of its members.

But, on each occasion, the House shall and will declare, in particular, by what species of annoyance such disturbance was effected, and by what individual instance of misbehaviour that species of annoyance was produced.

Art. II. For terminating, or preventing the repetition of, such annoyance, the House may either expel the delinquent member altogether, or exclude him for a limited time.

Art. III. If the duration of such exclusion shall, at any one time, exceed the term of [twenty-eight] days, such exclusion shall have the same effect as expulsion: and the electors, of the district for which he sat, shall proceed to elect a member to sit in his place.

Art. IV. They are however at liberty to re-elect the same member: and so for any number of times.

Art. V. In case of temporary exclusion, the House, as a condition precedent to re-admission, may exact of the delinquent member a promise in writing, never thenceforward to cause disturbance to the proceedings of the House, either by annoyance in the particular shape in which he has been declared to have offended, or in any other shape.

Art. VI. So, in case of his re-election: whether by the district for which at the time of such annoyance he was serving, or by any other district.

[]For an exposition of the words annoyance and disturbance, see Appendix.

[]This Section has two objects:—

1. To obviate the apprehension that annoyance may be given in the House to men of high habits by men of low habits; for, with men of this obnoxious description, to an unlimited amount, imagination, howsoever opposed by reason and experience, will, in the high-seated minds, be busy in peopling the house, supposing the seats in it filled by free and universal suffrage.

2. To secure individual members against groundless expulsion, and thereby their constituents against injury, by the injustice of an occasional majority of the house.

It being clear that, under any order of things, every governing assembly must possess, over its own members, whatsoever power is necessary to secure its proceedings against disturbance,—on this ground it is that Honourable House reserves to itself, of course, the power of excluding from its walls any person who shall have been pointed out by monarch or minister, to be so dealt with.

Thus it was that, in 1764, to please the Monarch, it expelled John Wilkes. The alleged cause was a libel; and a libel is—any discourse, in print or writing, which he who has power to punish for it chooses to punish for. Had that pretext failed, any words that had been spoken by him might have served: for, any words that Honourable House chose to expel a man for might, and at all times may be, for that or any other purpose, voted scandalous: scandalous, or, upon occasion—what would form so much stronger and commodious a ground—blasphemous. For, on the field of religion, whatever a man says that another man does not like, is, according to that other man, blasphemy: whereupon, in so far as he has power, he makes the miscreant smart for it.

Under the sway of corruption, no species of annoyance can be imagined, that Honourable House would not submit to, rather than submit to have this privilege defined, and thereby confined to its real uses. Not so under Radical reform.

The paramount objects here have been—to give effect to all legitimate causes of exclusion, and in so doing to put an exclusion upon all illegitimate ones. For this purpose, it was necessary to take what promised to be an exhaustive view of the legitimate ones. A temporary object was that which is herein above first mentioned: quieting the alarm which, in such a case, seemed liable to be felt by the opulent multitude, to whom personal ease is everything, public interest nothing.