Josh captures The ‘not so great and not so good’ essence highlighted by Steve McIntyre. Bishop Hill writes in Acton and parliamentary privilege:
Steve McIntyre notes UEA’s recent submission to an Information Tribunal hearing. McIntyre had pointed out that UEA’s vice-chancellor, Edward Acton, had told the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee that the emails relating to the Wahl and Ammann affair were available. However, they told McIntyre that they no longer existed.
In their defence, the university invokes the principle of Parliamentary Privilege.
Josh finds inspiration in this.
It is not really acceptable, is it?
Cartoons by Josh with a H/t to mydogsgotnonose for the inspiring Melton Mowbray comment.
(Note: the title is intentional, a fat fingered typo that I decided to keep because it speaks to the issue of pal-review, be it in journals or parliament – Anthony)
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Palrimentary procedure? If there’s an in joke there could you let me in on it?
Parliamentary
make that Parliamentary
Or did you mean Pal-rimentary procedure? 🙂
REPLY: Yes
Far too many pork pies it seems. Oh well, it will keep Melton Mowbray busy!
“Palrimentary”? Really? a typo or an accidental pun?
REPLY: A typo that spoke to the issue, so I decided to leave it for pun value. – Anthony
Notes for any puzzled readers:
Melton Mowbray is a town in England famous as a source of excellent pork pies.
‘Pork pies’ is rhyming ls rhyming slang for lies (sometimes reduced to ‘porkies’).
Finally, Josh is becoming known, in some circles over here at least, as the best cartoonist the world has ever seen …
It is acceptable of you are a catastrophiliac! Anything is acceptable if you follow the religion of Mann Made Global Warming ™.
Mailman
What’s “the principle of Parliamentary privelege?” The right to misinform Parliament when in a good cause? Or the right to misinform everyone not in Parliament?
“Catastrophiliac” – excellent word – perhaps we should all be regrouped from warmists and deniers into catastrophiles and catastrophobes.
PPP=Principle of Parliamentary Privilege=the Postponing of People Poo, or, basically, “Yer covered, Vicar, lie away!”
steveta_uk says:
May 10, 2012 at 10:32 am
““Catastrophiliac” – excellent word – perhaps we should all be regrouped from warmists and deniers into catastrophiles and catastrophobes.”
I’m catastrognostic. But I like to know which kind of catastrophe is about to happen. Timing the market and all that…
“Recently Anthony Inglese, general counsel and solicitor, HMRC, was appearing before the public accounts committee………..Having finally lost patience with Inglese, the committee’s chair, Labour MP Margaret Hodge, told him: We are taking an unusual step. It is a power we have. From here onwards were going to examine you on oath.”
“The Parliamentary Witnesses Oaths Act 1871 “empowers the House of Commons and its committees to administer oaths to witnesses, and attaches to false evidence the penalties of perjury”.
“A power not lost on Hodge, who told Inglese: “I’m no lawyer, but having taken the oath you don’t want to give answers that are incorrect, as you might find yourself with the accusation of having committed perjury.”
“Hodge’s decision could lead other committee chairs to consider whether to force their witnesses to give evidence under oath.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2011/11/07/public-accounts-committee-swear-bible_n_1080708.html
“Witnesses who lie to MPs while giving evidence to parliamentary committees may face criminal charges, the government has indicated.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2011/12/15/lying-to-parliament-may-become-a-criminal-offence_n_1150426.html
“UEA’s vice-chancellor, Edward Acton, had told the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee that the emails relating to the Wahl and Ammann affair were available. However, they told McIntyre that they no longer existed.”
So they are liars then.
“In their defence, the university invokes the principle of Parliamentary Privilege.”
Lying is a parliamentary privilege?
I’m not an expert on parliamentary procedure but I think parliamentary privalige in the UK only applies to Members of either chamber When speaking within the Palace of Westminster. It doesn’t apply to mere mortals like me when I happen to be at the Palace.
Maybe Ed is thinking above his station here and doesn’t realise that his is also a fully paid up member of the proletariat.
As a UK qualified politics graduate this is something I can speak here on with some authority.
Parliamentary Privilege only applies to pronouncements made by an MP in the debating chamber of the House of Commons. Anywhere else and even the MPs are subject to the same laws on veracity as anyone else in the UK.
The Principle of Parliamentary Privilege is one which says that you can reveal things in Parliament which would get you sued off the planet if you said it outside. As long as you are a duly elected MP.
If the analogy you are trying to illuminate is that CRU will only reveal things to their friends, not Her Majesty’s most objectionable backbench MP, then perhaps ‘Privy Counsellor Terms’ is what you are looking for. Being a Privy Counsellor means you have signed the Official Secrets Act and will therefore be granted access to highly privileged information on the assumption that you don’t want to end up frying your ass in jail for revealing it in public…….
Where CRU is concerned, their research is UK Government funded, so I guess you could make an argument that they don’t have to tell a Canadian what amounts to UK State information, anymore than NASA would reveal its secrets to me, a UK citizen. I’m sure you could get Benny Peiser to front it up for you if you needed an NGO based in the UK to wheedle it out of them…..
Neil Jones says:
“Parliamentary Privilege only applies to pronouncements made by an MP in the debating chamber of the House of Commons.”
Most interesting.
If I remember correctly, parliamentary privilege belongs primarily to members (of either house) for remarks made in the course of their business in Westminster – so the truth can out and they can’t be sued for eg libel. This can be jolly good for their constituents, to correct injustice.
This is extended to witnesses to committees, for the same reason. So the truth will out.
BUT! if you decide as a witness to mislead the House, then they can promptly fine you (not done since the seventeenth century) or imprison you (on the spot – no judges involved). Imprisonment has been done in more recent times. These days one of the select committees (Privileges?) would decide what to do, and the whole house would vote yea or nay.
Fundamentally, if you deceive the House it can turn round and smite you instantly. No appeal.
Catastrophiliac,catastrophiles and catastrophobes.
Excellent use of language, Steve_UK. The word.catastrophiliac is already in the urban dictionary. So descriptive.
Perhaps ‘Alimentary Procedure’ would apply better?!! Parliament (or Congress) provides the funding ‘nourishment’ to the global warming gluttons…. and we are expected to appreciate, even revere, the plethora of crap science and ‘impending doom’ flatulence they produce.
“It’s alimentary, my Dear Watson!”
Suggest that “coprophagic proctocranial” would be a more descriptive term than “catastrophiliac”.
Tony McGough says:
May 10, 2012 at 11:37 am
………..
Well said Mr.McGough. That pretty well tallies, as best as I remember, with what I was taught at school in London as a ten or eleven year old back in the nineteenforties. Things have changed a great deal in the meantime. These days the schools don’t seem to be able to teach children to read, let alone teach them nuggets of constitutional law.
Maybe an Alimentary Procedure?
Canadian Parliament
Freedom of speech permits Members to speak freely in the Chamber during a sitting or in committees during meetings while enjoying complete immunity from prosecution or civil liability for any comment they might make.[156] This freedom is essential for the effective working of the House. Under it, Members are able to make statements or allegations about outside bodies or persons, which they may hesitate to make without the protection of privilege. Though this is often criticized, the freedom to make allegations which the Member genuinely believes at the time to be true, or at least worthy of investigation, is fundamental. The House of Commons could not work effectively unless its Members were able to speak and criticize without having to account to any outside body. There would be no freedom of speech if everything had to be proven true before it were uttered. In ruling on a question of privilege in 1984, Speaker Bosley affirmed that “the privilege of a Member of Parliament when speaking in the House or in a committee is absolute, and that it would be very difficult to find that any statement made under the cloak of parliamentary privilege constituted a violation of that privilege”.[157]
This right is also extended to individuals who appear before the House or its committees in order to encourage truthful and complete disclosure, without fear of reprisal or other adverse actions as a result of their testimony. In 2005, the Federal Court of Appeal ruled that the testimony of parliamentary witnesses fell within the scope of parliamentary privilege because it is necessary for the functioning of Parliament for three reasons: “to encourage witnesses to speak openly before the Parliamentary committee, to allow the committee to exercise its investigative function and, in a more secondary way, to avoid contradictory findings of fact”.[158]
In 2007, the Federal Court again upheld that a witness’s testimony before a House committee is protected by parliamentary privilege:
[A]lthough witnesses before a parliamentary committee are not Members of Parliament, they are not strangers to the House either. Rather they are guests who are afforded parliamentary privilege because, as with members, the privilege is necessary to ensure that they are able to speak openly, free from the fear that their words will be used against them in subsequent proceedings ….
http://www.parl.gc.ca/procedure-book-livre/Document.aspx?Language=E&Mode=1&sbdid=ABBC077A-6DD8-4FBE-A29A-3F73554E63AA&sbpid=8D1FB681-EBE9-49E7-A752-37CF494854CB
Example
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/dubin-inquiry