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first count, Stockdale v. Hansard is a direct authority that a report of parliamentary proceedings is not privileged. . . . Not only did the Court so decide, but several members of it expressed opinions adverse to the supposed advantage of giving immunity to the publication of parliamentary proceedings.

The judgment of the court was delivered by

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The main question for our decision is, whether a faithful report in a public newspaper of a debate in either house of parliament, containing matter disparaging to the character of an individual, as having been spoken in the course of the debate, is actionable at the suit of the party whose character has thus been called in question. We are of opinion that it is not.

Important as the question is, it comes now for the first time before a court of law for decision.

1. Several cases were cited in the course of the argument before us, but they turned for the most part on the question of parliamentary privilege, and therefore appear to us very wide of the present question. . .

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The case of Stockdale v. Hansard (9 A. & E. 1), which was much pressed upon us by the counsel for the defendant, is in like manner beside the question. In that case a report from the inspectors of prisons relative to the jail of Newgate, in which a work published by the plaintiff, a bookseller, and which had been permitted to be introduced into the prison, had been described as "of a most disgusting nature," and as containing "plates obscene and indecent in the extreme," had been presented to the House in conformity with the Act of 5 & 6 Wm. 4, c. 38. In another report, being a reply to a report of the court of aldermen on the same subject, the inspectors had reiterated their charges as to the character of the book, adding that it had been described by medical booksellers, to whom they (the inspectors) had applied for information as to its character, as one of Stockdale's obscene books." These papers the House had ordered to be printed, not only for the use of members, but also, in conformity with a modern practice, for public sale, the proceeds to be applied to the general expenses of printing by the House. An action of libel having been brought by Stockdale against the defendants, the printers of the House of Commons, for publishing these papers, the defence as raised by the plea which this court had to consider was, first, that the papers in question had been published by order of the House of Commons; secondly, that the House having resolved (as it had done with a view to such an action) that the power of publishing such of its reports, votes, and proceedings, as it should deem necessary, was an essential incident to the functions of parliament, the question became one of privilege, as to which the decision of the House was conclusive, and could not be questioned in a court of law. From the doctrines involved in this defence, namely,

that the House of Commons could by their order authorize the violation of private rights, and, by declaring the power thus exercised to be matter of privilege, preclude a court of law from inquiring into the existence of the privilege, — doctrines which would have placed the rights and liberties of the subject at the mercy of a single branch of the Legislature, Lord Denman and his colleagues, in a series of masterly judgments which will secure to the judges who pronounced them admiration and reverence so long as the law of England and a regard for the rights and liberties of the subject shall endure, vindicated at once the majesty of the law and the rights which it is the purpose of the law to uphold.

To the decision of this Court in that memorable case we give our unhesitating and unqualified adhesion. But the decision in that case has no application to the present. The position, that an order of the House of Commons cannot render lawful that which is contrary to law, still less that a resolution of the House can supersede the jurisdiction of a court of law by clothing an unwarranted exercise of power with the garb of privilege, can have no application where the question is, not whether the act complained of, being unlawful at law, is rendered lawful by the order of the House or protected by the assertion of its privilege, but whether it is, independently of such order or assertion of privilege, in itself privileged and lawful. Decided cases thus leaving us without authority on which to proceed in the present instance, we must have recourse to principle in order to arrive at a solution of the question before us, and fortunately we have not far to seek before we find principles in our opinion applicable to the case, and which will afford a safe and sure foundation for our judgment. 2. It is now well established that faithful and fair reports of the proceedings of courts of justice, though the character of individuals may incidentally suffer, are privileged, and that for the publication of such reports the publishers are neither criminally nor civilly responsible. . . . The advantage to the community from publicity being given to the proceedings of courts of justice is so great, that the occasional inconvenience to individuals arising from it must yield to the general good. We entirely concur with Lawrence, J., in Rex v. Wright, that the same reasons which apply to the reports of the proceedings in courts of justice apply also to proceedings in parliament. It seems to us impossible to doubt that it is of paramount public and national importance that the proceedings of the houses of parliament shall be communicated to the public, who have the deepest interest in knowing what passes within their walls, seeing that on what is there said and done, the welfare of the community depends. Where would be our confidence in the government of the country or in the Legislature by which our laws are framed, and to whose charge the great interests of

18 T. R., at p. 298.

the country are committed, where would be our attachment to the constitution under which we live, if the proceedings of the great council of the realm were shrouded in secrecy and concealed from the knowledge of the nation? How could the communications between the representatives of the people and their constituents, which are so essential to the working of the representative system, be usefully carried on, if the constituencies were kept in ignorance of what their representatives are doing? What would become of the right of petitioning on all measures pending in parliament, the undoubted right of the subject, if the people are to be kept in igorance of what is passing in either house? Can any man bring himself to doubt that the publicity given in modern times to what passes in parliament is essential to the maintenance of the relations subsisting between the government, the Legislature, and the country at large? It may, no doubt, be said that, while it may be necessary as a matter of national interest that the proceedings of parliament should in general be made public, yet that debates in which the character of individuals is brought into question ought to be suppressed. But to this, in addition to the difficulty in which parties publishing parliamentary reports would be placed, if this distinction were to be enforced and every debate had to be critically scanned to see whether it contained defamatory matter, it may be further answered that there is perhaps no subject in which the public have a deeper interest than in all that relates to the conduct of public servants of the state, no subject of parliamentary discussion which more requires to be made known than an inquiry relating to it. Of this no better illustration could possibly be given than is afforded by the case before us. . .

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The learned counsel for the plaintiff scarcely ventured as of his own assertion to deny that the benefit to the public from having the debates in parliament published was as great as that which arose from the publishing of the proceedings of courts of justice, but he relied on the dicta of Littledale, J. and Patteson, J., in Stockdale v. Hansard, . . . denying the necessity and in effect the public advantage of the proceedings in parliament being made public. . . . That the Legislature did not concur with the two judges in their view of the policy is manifest from the Act of 3 Vict. c. 9, passed in consequence of the decision in Stockdale v. Hansard, the preamble of which statute recites that "it is essential to the due and effectual exercise and discharge of the functions and duties of parliament and to the promotion of wise legislation that no obstructions or impediments should exist to the publication of such of the reports, papers, votes, or proceedings of either house of parliament as such house of parliament may deem fit or necessary to be published." After which the Act proceeds to provide for the prevention of actions being brought in respect of papers published by order of either house of parliament..

To us it seems clear that the principles on which the publication

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of reports of the proceedings of courts of justice have been held to be privileged apply to the reports of parliamentary proceedings. The analogy between the two cases is in every respect complete. If the rule has never been applied to the reports of parliamentary proceedings till now, we must assume that it is only because the occasion has never before arisen. . . . The analogy between the case of reports of proceedings of courts of justice and those of proceedings in parliament being complete, all the limitations placed on the one to prevent injustice to individuals will necessarily attach on the other: a garbled or partial report, or of detached parts of proceedings, published with intent to injure individuals, will equally be disentitled to protection. Our judgment will in no way interfere with the decisions that the publication of a single speech for the purpose or with the effect of injuring an individual will be unlawful, as was held in the cases of Rex v. Lord Abingdon, 1 Esp. 226, and Rex v. Creevey, 1 M. & S. 273. . .

We are of opinion that in respect of the alleged misdirection, as also on the former point, the ruling at nisi prius was right and that consequently this rule must be discharged. Rule discharged.

950. BUCKSTAFF v. HICKS

SUPREME COURT OF WISCONSIN. 1896

94 Wis. 34, 68 N. W. 403

APPEAL from Circuit Court, Winnebago county; GEORGE W. BURNELL, Judge. Action by George H. Buckstaff against John Hicks. Judgment for plaintiff. Defendant appeals. Affirmed. This is an action of libel, brought by plaintiff for an alleged libellous article printed in the Oshkosh Northwestern, March 19, 1889, of which paper defendant was publisher and proprietor. At the time of said publication, the plaintiff was State senator from the Nineteenth senatorial district, which comprised the city of Oshkosh and a large portion of the county of Winnebago. The legislature was at that time in session, and there were pending certain amendments to the charter of the city of Oshkosh. One George W. Pratt represented at that time the city of Oshkosh in the assembly. On the 18th of March, 1889, a public meeting was held at the council rooms in the city of Oshkosh, at which meeting the mayor and aldermen of the city were present, and also a number of citizens, and, among them, Assemblyman Pratt. At this meeting some consideration was given to the charter amendments pending in the legislature, and Mr. Pratt was called upon and made some remarks. Upon the following day, the defendant's newspaper published a report of said meeting, which was written by one of its reporters, and which contained the following paragraphs, which are the paragraphs claimed to be libellous in this action:

"When amendments had been disposed of, Assemblyman Pratt, who was present, was asked to give his opinion of the charter. . . . Mr. Pratt began by explaining the delay in the consideration of the charter bill. . . . He said the council had been shamefully treated by Senator Buckstaff and Mr. Schmidt, and advised the council to take a dignified stand in the matter, and, if the charter bill was killed, let the responsibility for it fall where it belonged. It was a bad state of affairs when a man like Senator Buckstaff, who was four-fifths of his time in a state of intoxication, could dictate to the common council what the charter amendments should be."

The defence was substantially that the publication was privileged. It appeared upon the trial that the newspaper in question circulated to a considerable extent outside of the city of Oshkosh. . . . It appeared that there was no record of any such meeting in the official records of the council proceedings of the city of Oshkosh.

The Court charged the jury to the effect that that part of the article which charged Senator Buckstaff with intoxication was libellous, and that the only question for them to determine was the amount of plaintiff's damages. The following proposed instructions were refused by the Court, and exceptions were taken: "If the jury believes that the report of the meeting of the common council held on the 18th day of March, 1889, at which George W. Pratt made an address, was fair and accurate, it is prima facie privileged, and your verdict should be for the defendant; there being no proof that it was published maliciously, being published solely to afford information to the public for the benefit of society, without reference to individual's concern, and there being no proof of malicious publication." . . . The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff, and assessed the damages at $1,250; and, upon motion for a new trial, the Court ordered a new trial, unless the plaintiff remitted the sum of $750 from the verdict. The plaintiff having remitted said sum, judgment for $500 and costs was rendered in favor of plaintiff, and defendant appealed.

John W. Hume and A. E. Thompson, for appellant.

F. W. Houghton, for respondent.

WINSLOW, J. (after stating the facts). The publication complained of was libellous if not privileged, and this is the controlling question on this appeal. . . . The proceedings of legislative bodies, of courts, and of military and naval tribunals, are privileged. In these cases the privilege is said to be absolute, and, though this may not be strictly accurate, it is unnecessary at present to discuss the question, because the publication in issue does not fall within this class. The second class of privileged publications or communications is said to be conditionally privileged from the fact that the privilege depends upon the good faith of the party making the defamatory publication. Cases of conditional or qualified privilege may be divided into three general classes, viz.: (1) Fair reports of the proceedings of courts and legislative bodies; (2) where the defendant, in good faith, in the perform

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