Westminster System Countries
Legislators in countries using the Westminster system, such as the United Kingdom, are protected from civil action for slander and libel by parliamentary immunity whilst they are in the House. This protection is known as parliamentary privilege. Parliamentary immunity from criminal prosecution is not enjoyed by Members of Parliament under the Westminster system. This lack of criminal immunity is derived from the key tenet of the British Constitution that all are equal before the law.
In the run-up to the 2006 election in Canada, Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper denounced the ruling Liberal Party on the floor of the House of Commons, contending that the government ran "a massive corruption ring using organized crime to defraud taxpayers." Although the Liberal Party had threatened to sue Harper if he repeats his allegation during the campaign, parliamentary immunity prevented them from legal action against his statements in the Commons.
Read more about this topic: Parliamentary Immunity
Famous quotes containing the words system and/or countries:
“Such is the remorseless progression of human society, shedding lives and souls as it goes on its way. It is an ocean into which men sink who have been cast out by the law and consigned, with help most cruelly withheld, to moral death. The sea is the pitiless social darkness into which the penal system casts those it has condemned, an unfathomable waste of misery. The human soul, lost in those depths, may become a corpse. Who shall revive it?”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“The man who loves other countries as much as his own stands on a level with the man who loves other women as much as he loves his own wife.”
—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)