The Lord Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Stephen delivered last
Saturday the unanimous judgment of the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice in the action " Bradlaugh v. Gosset," in which Mr. Bradlaugh brought an action against the Serjeant-at..Arms for excluding him from the House by the direc- tion of the House, contrary to law. The unanimous judgment of the Court was against Mr. Bradlaugh, the Judges holding that the Houses of Parliament have not only absolute command of their own discipline, but the absolute right to interpret for themselves, without appeal, those statutes which are passed for the regulation of the procedure and discipline of the respective
Houses, so far as these concern the acts to be done within either House, and not those which are to be done outside. If any question arose as to the enforcement of a statutory fine or penalty,— which could only be enforced by the order of a Court of Justice, —then the Courts of Justice would claim to interpret for them- selves the Acts imposing that fine or penalty, and would not be bound by any resolutions of the Houses of Parliament, except so far as the Court held that those resolutions were taken in perfect conformity with the law, and were there- fore legal resolutions. Mr. Justice Stephen, whose very able and elaborate judgment discussed the whole question, declared that even if the House of Commons interpreted the statute wrongly, or, to put a mere supposition for which he apologised, with the deliberate intention of doing injustice, there would yet be no remedy. "It resembles the case of an error made by a Judge whose decision is not subject to appeal."
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