"As every court of justice," says Lord Coke, "hath laws and customs for
its direction, some by the Common Law, some by the Civil and Canon Law,
some by peculiar laws and customs, &c., so the High Court of Parliament
_suis propriis legibus et consuetudinibus subsistit_. It is by the _Lex
et Consuetudo Parliamenti_, that all weighty matters in any Parliament
moved, concerning the peers of the realm, or Commons in Parliament
assembled, ought to be determined, adjudged, and discussed, by the
course of the Parliament, and not by the Civil Law, nor yet by the
common laws of this realm used in more inferior courts." And after
founding himself on this very precedent of the 11th of Richard II., he
adds, _"This is the reason that Judges ought not to give any opinion of
a matter of Parliament, because it is not to be decided by the common
laws, but secundum Legem et Consuetudinem Parliamenti: and so the Judges
in divers Parliaments have confessed!"_[3]
RULE OF PLEADING.
Your Committee do not find that any rules of pleading, as observed in
the inferior courts, have ever obtained in the proceedings of the High
Court of Parliament, in a cause or matter in which the whole procedure
has been within their original jurisdiction.
Pages:
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26