THE COMMITTEE OF PRIVILEGES is evidently wise enough to realise
that it burnt its fingers over the Junor case, and it has disposed of the other petrol cases with admirable circumspection. The Com- mittee did not even call the alleged offenders as- witnesses, and it made its report, sotto voce, last week. But even this document contains a sentence which it would be hard to defend : 'Comment on a matter which has been referred to the Committee of Privileges before the report of the Committee thereon has been made to, and considered by, the House may constitute a con- tempt. . The sub judice rule is obviously necessary and desirable for ordinary court pro- ceedings, but the Committee of Privileges is no more of a court of law than the UN is. The chief reason for the rule is to prevent the minds of jurors being prejudiced, but the minds of the Privilege Committee are anyhow prejudiced in a way that those of jurors are not; and press comment is at least as likely to lessen the prejudice as to increase it. I think it is a pity that the Committee should have so far lost its sense of humour as to seem to claim parity of esteem with the Courts.
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