[1]
JURISDICTION OF THE LORDS.
Your Committee finds, that, in all impeachments of the Commons of Great
Britain for high crimes and misdemeanors before the Peers in the High
Court of Parliament, the Peers are not triers or jurors only, but, by
the ancient laws and constitution of this kingdom, known by constant
usage, are judges both of law and fact; and we conceive that the Lords
are bound not to act in such a manner as to give rise to an opinion that
they have virtually submitted to a division of their legal powers, or
that, putting themselves into the situation of mere triers or jurors,
they may suffer the evidence in the cause to be produced or not produced
before them, according to the discretion of the judges of the inferior
courts.
LAW OF PARLIAMENT.
Your Committee finds that the Lords, in matter of appeal or impeachment
in Parliament, are not of right obliged to proceed according to the
course or rules of the Roman Civil Law, or by those of the law or usage
of any of the inferior courts in Westminster Hall, but by the law and
usage of Parliament. And your Committee finds that this has been
declared in the most clear and explicit manner by the House of Lords, in
the year of our Lord 1387 and 1388, in the 11th year of King Richard II.
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