PARLIAMENT (said to be derived from 'Airier la meat, to speak the mind, or parum lamentum) .
In English Law. The legislative branch of the government of Great Britain, consisting of the house of lords and the house of corn mons.
The parliament is usually considered to consist of the king, lords, and commons. See 1 Bla. Com. 147P, 157•, Chitty's note ; 2 Stsph. Com., Ilth ed. 341. In 1 Woodd. Lect. 30, the lords temporal, the lords spiritual, said the commons are called the three es tates of the realm: yet the king is called a part of the parliament, in right of his prerogative of veto and the necessity of his approval to the passage of a bill. That the connection between the king and the lords temporal, the lords spiritual, and the com mons, who when assembled in parliament form the three estates of the realm, is the same as that which subsists between the king, and those estates-the people at large-out of parliament, the king not being in either case a member, branch, or co-estate, but standing solely in the relation of sovereign or head. See Colton, Record 710;' Rot. Part. vol. Di. 623 a; 2 M. & G. 457, n. Historically and properly speaking the absolute sovereign power in the king dom is vested in the king in parliament. See Dicey, British Const. 141.
The House of Lords was formerly the supreine court of judicature in the kingdom. It had no orig inal jurisdiction (except to a certain extent before the reign of Charles II.), but was the court of ap peal in the last resort, with a few exceptions and under some limitations as to the right, from the inferior courts upon appeal or writ of error for mistakes of law. Appeals lay to this tribunal from Scotch and Irish courts, In some cases. See stet. 4 Geo. IV. c. 85, as to Scotch, and stet. 39 & 40 Geo. III. c. 67, art. 8, as to Irish, appeals.
This body, when sitting as a court of law, was presided over by the lord chancellor, whose attend ance alone was in any respect compulsory, and was composed of as many of its members who had filled judicial stations as chose to attend. Three laymen also attended in rotation, but did not vote upon judicial matters ; Cl. & F. 421. In the absence of the chancellor, deputy speakers, who were mem bers of the profession but not of the house, have been appointed; 3 Bla. Com. 66.
Before Henry III's time the distinction between legislative and administrative acts was not clearly drawn. The need of consulting the nation before that time had imposed a vague restraint upon the crown ; before then the manner and form of con sulting It was uncertain. But the distinction began to grow clear in Henry M.'s reign and statutes passed in parliament could not be repealed without its consent. As yet the king's council in parliament assisted by the judges was then the essence of the parliament and made the laws; the consent of the commons was not indispensable. The Chief Jus tices as members of the council bad a real voice in making the laws, and the king and his justices might put an authoritative interpretation upon them. The legislative, executive and judicial authorities had not yet become so completely separated that they could not on occasion work together. In the following century parliament had become a body distinct from and even antagonistic to the council and the king. Enactments passed by parliament were the only ones that the common law courts would allow to be laws and the law could only he changed by parliamentary action and not as for merly by administrative acts.
But the crown did not cease to possess discre tionary powers ; the intervention between parlia ments, the generality of the older statutes and the growing fixity of the jursidiction of the common law courts made the existence of some such powers a necessity ; and in Edward I's reign they were often exercised by the king's council in parliament. But this supreme court tended to separate into two bodies: Parliament, the legislative, and the council, the executive. And parliament as the maker of the laws strengthened its connection with the common law courts and weakened its connection with the crown and council. It was for this reason that parliament tended to assume its common law juris diction in error, while the council retained the dis cretionary powers which were still left to the crown.