Parliamentary Rights Quotes

It was a privilege to play a leading role in helping to safeguard our parliamentary sovereignty, and as such I am, on any view, a person with a genuine and substantial interest in the matter of defending MPs' voices.

It is the right of a democratically elected parliament to act in defence of our traditional liberties, and everything should be done to keep it that way.

That's what the Senate is about. It's the last bastion of minority rights, where a minority can be heard, where a minority can stand on its feet, one individual if necessary, and speak until he falls into the dust.

The liberties, franchises, and privileges of parliament are the ancient and undoubted birth-right and inheritance of the subjects of England.

The Bill of Rights was intended to secure freedom of speech - the freedom of speech of members of parliament to speak freely rather than be at threat of... the threat of an over powerful monarch at the time.

Any two members of either house shall have liberty to dissent from, and protest against, any act or resolution which they may think injurious to the public or any individual, and have the reasons of their dissent entered on the journals.

But they have two other Rights; those of sitting when they please, and as long as they please, in which methinks they have the advantage of your Parliament; for they cannot be dissolved by the Breath of a Minister, or sent packing as you were the other day, when it was your earnest desire to have remained longer together.

I,-------- do, in the presence of Almighty God, promise, vow, and protest to maintain, and defend as farr as lawfully I maye, with my Life, Power and Estate, the true Reformed Protestant religion, expressed in the Doctrine of the Church of England, against all Popery and Popish Innovations, within this Realme, contrary to the same Doctrine, and according to the duty of my Allegiance, His Majesties Royal Person, Honour and Estate, as alsoe the Power and Privileges of Parliament, the lawful Rights and Liberties of the Subjects, and any person that maketh this Protestation, in whatsoever he shall do in the lawful Pursuance of the same; and to my power, and as farr as lawfully I may, I will appose and by all good Ways and Means endeavour to bring to condign Punishment all such as shall, either by Force, Practice, Councels, Plots, Conspiracies, or otherwise, doe any Thing to the contrary of any Thing in this present Protestation contained: and further, that I shall, in all just and honourable ways, endeavour to preserve the Union and Peace betwixt the Three Kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland: and neither for Hope, Feare, nor other Respect, shell relinquish this Promise, Vow and Protestate.

The purpose of privilege is not to place parliamentarians above the law, but rather to allow them to carry out their duties independently and effectively, in the national interest.

The House of Commons has the undoubted rights to expel members for misconduct. This is an absolute authority which cannot be challenged in any court, as it derives from the twin concept of the High Court of Parliament being the most senior court in the land and of each House's right to regulate its own affairs.