Skinner's Case became a
constitutionally important dispute between the
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...
and the
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...
over the question of any
original jurisdiction
In common law legal systems, original jurisdiction of a court is the power to hear a case for the first time, as opposed to appellate jurisdiction, when a higher court has the power to review a lower court's decision.
India
In India, the S ...
of the former house in
civil suits (whether a possible court of first instance). Through royal intervention, it was determined and became custom that such jurisdiction was to be avoided.
Facts
In 1668, a
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
-based merchant, Thomas Skinner, presented a petition to
Charles II asserting that he could not obtain any redress against the
East India Company
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...
, which, he asserted, had injured his property, his free trading base in the Indian Ocean set up before the latter had an official monopoly.
The case was referred to the House of Lords, and Skinner obtained a verdict for £5,000 damages (). The company complained to the House of Commons which declared that the proceedings in the other House were illegal. The Lords defended their action, and after two conferences between the Houses had produced no result the Commons ordered Skinner to be put in prison on a charge of
breach of privilege; to this the Lords replied by fining and imprisoning
Sir Samuel Barnardiston, the chairman of the company.
Then for about a year the dispute slumbered, but it was renewed in 1669, when Charles II advised the two Houses to stop all proceedings and to erase all mention of the case from their records. This was done and since this time the House of Lords has tacitly abandoned all claim to original jurisdiction (be a court of first instance) in civil suits.
Authorities
*
Lord Holles, ''The Grand Question concerning the Judicature of the House of Peers'' (1669)
*
Thomas Pitt Taswell-Langmead, ''English Constitutional History'' (1905)
*
Luke Owen Pike, ''Constitutional History of the House of Lords'' (1894)
*
Henry Hallam, ''Constitutional History'', vol. iii. (1885).
See also
*
Judicial Committee of the House of Lords
Whilst the House of Lords of the United Kingdom is the upper chamber of Parliament and has government ministers, for many centuries it had a judicial function. It functioned as a court of first instance for the trials of peers and for Impeachm ...
*
Earl of Oxford's Case, in which the monarch intervened, helping to establish whether conflicting matters of equity or of those of the common law prevail in English Law.
{{1911, wstitle=Skinner's Case, volume=25, page=192
1668 in England
1668 in law
House of Commons of the United Kingdom
House of Lords cases