BREACH OF PRIVILEGE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 July 1938, Page 7

BREACH OF PRIVILEGE

FOUND BY COMMITTEE OF COMMONS ACTION OF MILITARY COURT CRITICISED. ATTEMPT TO PUT PRESSURE ON MEMBER. By Telegraph.—Press Association, Copyright. (Recd This Day, 10.8 a.m.) LONDON, June 30. At the end of the House of Commons question time,. the Prime Minister, Mr Neville Chamberlain, rose in a tense and crowded House to make a statement on the decision of the Committee of Privilege. Aji unanimous report was to the effect that there had been a breach of privilege, but no further action was recommended. The report stated that the scope of the privileges of members and of the House itself was not laid down in any complete code to be found in a statute or elsewhere. It was largely a matter of law and custom and the committee had been unable to find any precise precedent for the circumstances of the present case. After reviewing these circumstances, the ret port stated that, without making any reflection upon the military court, it appeared to the committee that the summons to Mr D. Sandys, might well appear to be an attempt to induce him to give certain information at a time when the House was proposing to set up a select committee, to consider, among other things, the propriety of his being asked to give such information. Immediately after presenting the report, Mr Chamberlain moved the appointment of a select committee to inquire into the substance of the statement made on June 27 in the House by Mr Sandys and the action of the Minister concerned and generally into the question of applicability of the Official Secrets Act to members of the House in the discharge of their Parliamentary duties. AT A HALT. NO SITTING OF MILITARY COURT. (Recd This Day, 10.20 a.m.) LONDON, June 30. The military court of inquiry did not sit today. ' ( On June 27, Mr Sandy’s, member for Norwood, raised a question of privilege in the House of Commons. Mr Sandys sought the guidance of the Speaker following on an interview he (Mr Sandys) had with the Attorney-Gener-al (Sir Donald Somervell). Mr Sandys had forwarded to the Secretary of War the draft of a question he proposed to put on the Order Paper, the contents of which he was later informed by the War Office to indicate disclosure of secret information. The purpose of the interview, according to the Attorney-General’s statement in the House was to inform Mr Sandys, who was thought to be unaware of the breach of the Official Secrets Act involved, and to put the legal position before him and to ask him if he was prepared to assist in tracing the disclosure by revealing the sources of his information.

According to Mr Sandy’s statement, it appears that he considered Sir Donold Somervell’s request as a threat of proceedings under the Act. In a subsequent interview and by an exchange of letters the Attorney-General indicated that there had been misapprehension and that there was no intion of enforcing against the member for Norwood the powers of interrogation under the Official Secrets Act. Mr Sandys, however, decided to raise the matter in the House as a question concerning not merely himself, but equally all members of Parliament, and it was decided that the position should be clarified without delay. On June 29, Mr Sandys announced in the House of Commons that in his capacity as an officer of the Territorial Army he had received orders to appear on the following day in uniform to give evidence before a military court of inquiry. Mr Sandys appealed to the Speaker for guidance and said that the question of how far it was permissible to compel a member of Parliament to divulge a source of information used by him in the discharge of his Parliamentary duties was in process of being considered by the House, and in those circumstances he submitted that it was a gross breach of privilege of the House that he should be summoned before a military tribunal. He asked the Speaker to declare that he had made out a prima facie case of breach of privilege. Mr Speaker ruled that Mr Sandys had made out a prima facie case of a breach. Mr Chamberlain later announced that the Minister of War had agreed to ask the Army Council to suspend the summons to Mr Sandys as a territorial officer until the Committee of Privilege had reported on the prima facie case of breach of privilege which the Speaker had ruled had been made out.