Parliamentary Procedure

SPEAKER'S RULINGS

The SPEAKER (15:52): On the last sitting Thursday, the member for Stuart said:

Mr Speaker, the question was very specifically asking the Premier to tell the house about his plans to renew the public sector, and he is straying from that under standing order 98.

I replied:

I will read the Hansard and I will rebuke the Premier if necessary if the question is as you say it is.

I have read the Hansard and I have rebuked the Premier.

On the last sitting day, while providing information to the house in support of my ruling relating to an inadmissible question that was seeking an answer to a question requiring information set forth in accessible documents, I also advised that I would not be enforcing what I thought was the practice of the House of Commons that ruled that questions referring to the evidence of witnesses or other matters before a royal commission were inadmissible.

A member sought clarification of my ruling and queried whether the House of Commons practice applied to a royal commission during its inquiry or whether the practice related to all questions relating to a royal commission during its inquiry and after it had reported. I took the matter on notice.

Erskine May does not sustain the argument that House of Commons' practice regards as inadmissible all questions relating to royal commissions and applies the same restrictions on such questions and debate as it applies to questions and debate relating to the evidence given before a parliamentary committee—that is, questions are inadmissible and debate is out of order until the committee and, by extension, a royal commission has reported.

Erskine May alludes to resolutions passed by the House of Commons in 1963, 1972 and 2001 about the sub judice convention that appears to apply to matters awaiting the adjudication of a court of law, including the proceedings of a royal commission. This is supported by House of Representatives' practice, which, in the discussion of the application of the sub judice convention in the House of Representatives, has regard to the same House of Commons' resolutions, and notes that in House of Representatives' practice, and I quote:

The convention has also been applied in respect of Royal Commissions.

The House of Representatives' practice makes it clear that the chair and the house should consider applying the sub judice convention to any judicial or quasi-judicial body where there is a possibility of prejudicing or appearing to prejudice proceedings. About the royal commission report that was the subject of questions of last sitting Thursday, it should be noted that the royal commission has reported and that the report is a tabled parliamentary paper and a public document. However, the House of Assembly has traditionally honoured the sub judice convention, so some caution is now required about the possible prejudice to any legal proceedings that may flow from the royal commission findings.