A private bill is a proposal for a law that would apply to a particular individual or group of individuals, or corporate entity. If enacted, it becomes a private Act (of Parliament). This is unlike public bills which apply to everyone within their jurisdiction. Private law can afford relief from another law, grant a unique benefit or powers not available under the general law, or relieve someone from legal responsibility for some allegedly wrongful act. There are many examples of such private law in democratic countries, although its use has changed over time.
A private bill is not to be confused with a private member’s bill, this being a bill introduced by a “backbencher” or a "crossbencher".
Read more about Private Bill: Canada, United Kingdom, United States
Famous quotes containing the words private and/or bill:
“He said that private practice in medicine ought to be put down by law. When I asked him why, he said that private doctors were ignorant licensed murders.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Meantime the education of the general mind never stops. The reveries of the true and simple are prophetic. What the tender poetic youth dreams, and prays, and paints today, but shuns the ridicule of saying aloud, shall presently be the resolutions of public bodies, then shall be carried as grievance and bill of rights through conflict and war, and then shall be triumphant law and establishment for a hundred years, until it gives place, in turn, to new prayers and pictures.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)