Committee for Privileges and Conduct

The Committee for Privileges and Conduct is a committee of the British House of Lords.

Tasks

The members of the House of Lords in addition to their legislative duties also reaped certain rights. Order in general and in individual cases to determine these rights and defend the House of Lords has set up a committee, called the Committee for Privileges.

In addition to the general protection of the rights and privileges of the House of Lords members, eg Immunity, belongs primarily to establish who is entitled to a seat in doubt in the upper house, whose tasks. This task, which determine who can claim a seat in the House of Lords was, especially before the general, was made by the House of Lords Act 1999 abolition of hereditary privilege for the old hereditary nobility ( Dukes, Marquesses, Earls, Viscounts and Barons ), is of great importance, because often the succession in a peerage was unclear and several contenders claimed a title.

One such case occurred especially when a long- dormant barony was claimed by one or more petitioners. In these cases, it was mostly about petitioned restoration of a so-called barony by writ. Most of these baronies were from the High Middle Ages. During this period and into the early modern period inherited English baronies not by nobility ( by Letters Patent ) were created, but by a request of the king to present themselves as a counselor of the Crown in Parliament and take part in the deliberations of that body. This Writ of Summons called convening established a hereditary barony, which was inherited by the oldest son. In contrast to the later established by nobility hereditary baronies that could be inherited only male heir, became a Barony by writ inherited by female offspring when male heirs were not available. However, since only one person was able to carry the title, and the female heirs inherit not according to the law applicable to men principle of primogeniture, but to the entire hand rested such a barony, if multiple equal women were the heirs until either only one female person was left or if one of the descendants of the last title holder entitled to inherit successfully petitioned the dormant title at the crown. This Ruhenstatbestand called Abeyance.

Method

Went to the crown a petition to restore a dormant barony, there were two possibilities for the Crown: The crown could grant the claim and stop the Ruhenstatbestand of obvious, no one disputed by existing standards in consultation with the Attorney General. In general, however, the Crown referred the petition to the Committee for Prvileges, with a request to verify the claim of the petitioner on his authority. The Committee then reviewed the claim raised and prepared for the crown an expert opinion in which it is appropriate to acknowledge or reject the claim of the petitioner or the petitioner.

Since 1927 the Committee has the right to reject the petition even if the claimed barony was abeyant for more than 100 years or when multiple beneficiaries, the petitioner is to be less than a third joint-heir. This regulation was preceded by that in 1923 the barony of Cromwell was restituted after a Abeyance of 426 years and the dormant since 1756 Barony of Fitzwalter was not restored until 1924. However, this possibility does according to the Committee for Prvileges was a discretionary provision, by the it is not always made ​​use of, for 1989, the dormant since 1496 Barony of Grey of Codnor was restituted.

Further enlargement of the decision-making power of the committees came in 1954 in force: Off to enclosed occasion, the Committee denied joint heirs with respect to the right to claim only a title, although the last title holder had held several baronies, so from a titleholder with several titles now several to make champions with only one track.

The House of Lords reform in 1999, which basically abolished the hereditary upper house seats and only from among the originally entitled allowed a choice of 75, a resurgence title is rested long -do not become obsolete, as formerly seated at the death of one of the selected, with hereditary privilege upper House members for the vacant seat from among the originally hereditary peers of course, a holder of a returning from sleep event champions can be nachgewählt.

Composition of the Committee

The Committee for Privileges has 16 elected by the House of Lords members. By the year 2009, at least three of them Lords of Appeal in Ordinary had to be. With the abolition of the legal duties of the House of Lords Act of 2005 accounted for by the legal assessor. This is true today only when deciding whether a peerage should be awarded.