The Court of Referees is a twelve-member committee of the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprema ...

, established in 1865. It is tasked with considering the rights of a petitioner (until 2017 known as their ) to argue against a

private bill Proposed bills are often categorized into public bills and private bills. A public bill is a proposed law which would apply to everyone within its jurisdiction. This is unlike a private bill which is a proposal for a law affecting only a single p ...

, in cases where the promoters of the bill have challenged that right. It is chaired by the

Chairman of Ways and Means In the United Kingdom, the Chairman of Ways and Means is a senior member of the House of Commons who acts as one of the Speaker's three deputies. The incumbent is Dame Eleanor Laing, MP for Epping Forest, who was first elected to the office on ...

(the principal

Deputy Speaker The speaker of a deliberative assembly, especially a legislative body, is its presiding officer, or the chair. The title was first used in 1377 in England. Usage The title was first recorded in 1377 to describe the role of Thomas de Hungerf ...

). The other members are the other two Deputy Speakers, the Speaker's Counsel (the Speaker's legal adviser) and eight backbench MPs. Three of the court's members, or referees, form a

quorum A quorum is the minimum number of members of a deliberative assembly (a body that uses parliamentary procedure, such as a legislature) necessary to conduct the business of that group. According to ''Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised'', the ...

. The court meets rarely;

Erskine May Thomas Erskine May, 1st Baron Farnborough, (8 February 1815 – 17 May 1886) was a British constitutional theorist and Clerk of the House of Commons. His seminal work, ''A Treatise upon the Law, Privileges, Proceedings and Usage of Parliame ...

reporting that "The court met once in 2016; prior to that meeting, it had last met in 2002".

References

Further reading