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Title

Ch19 Parliamentary privilege / OTHER PRIVILEGES / Exemption from attendance as a witness

Database

House Practice

Date

01-05-2005

Source

House of Reps

Parl No.

41

Chapter

Parliamentary privilege

Chapter No.

Chapter 19

Page

726

Section No.

 

System Id

procedural/practcer/chapter19.32.doc


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Ch19 Parliamentary privilege / OTHER PRIVILEGES / Exemption from attendance as a witness



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House of Representatives                                Ch 19                                                 p 726

 

Parliamentary privilege / OTHER PRIVILEGES

 

Exemption from attendance as a witness

Section 14 of the Parliamentary Privileges Act provides that Members shall not be required to attend before a court or tribunal on any day on which the House of which the Member is a member meets, on any day on which a committee of which he or she is a member meets or on any day within five days before or after such days. The exemption is also extended to employees of the House required to attend upon the House or a committee and applies on days on which the House or the committee upon which the officer is required to attend meets, or on days within five days before or after such days. Witnesses, that is, ‘persons required to attend before a house or a committee on a day’, shall not be required to attend before a court or tribunal on that day.

The Parliament claims the right of the service of its Members and employees in priority to a subpoena to attend as a witness in court ‘. . . upon the same principle as other personal privileges, viz, the paramount right of Parliament to the attendance and service of its Members’. 1 In the House of Representatives, when a Member has received a subpoena requiring his or her attendance in court on a day on which a Member could not be compelled to attend, it has been common for the Speaker to write to the court authorities asking that the Member be excused.

In 1966 the Treasurer was served with a subpoena requiring his attendance before the Supreme Court of Victoria. The Speaker wrote to the court drawing attention to the claims of the House concerning the attendance of Members. The judge ruled in accordance with the Speaker’s representations, and excused the Treasurer from attendance. 2

Subsection 15(2) of the Evidence Act 1995 provides that a Member of a House of an Australian Parliament is not compellable to give evidence if this would prevent the Member from attending a sitting of his or her House, or a joint sitting, or a meeting of a committee of which he or she is a member.



May , 23rd edn, p. 125.



Di Nardo v. Downer (1966) Victorian Reports 351-2.