parliamentary procedure Parliamentary procedure is the accepted rules, ethics, and customs governing meetings of an assembly or organization. Its object is to allow orderly deliberation upon questions of interest to the organization and thus to arrive at the sense or t ...

, especially the Westminster system, a document is laid before the house or Laid on the Table of the House when it is formally recognised as having been made available for members of a

deliberative assembly A deliberative assembly is a meeting of members who use parliamentary procedure. Etymology In a speech to the electorate at Bristol in 1774, Edmund Burke described the British Parliament as a "deliberative assembly," and the expression became the ...

to read. Documents produced by official bodies or in response to orders from parliament are required to be laid before the house. These documents inform members in their deliberations. Originally, a physical copy of the document was placed on the table in the assembly chamber. This is no longer the case, with statutes and

rules of order Parliamentary procedure is the accepted rules, ethics, and customs governing meetings of an assembly or organization. Its object is to allow orderly deliberation upon questions of interest to the organization and thus to arrive at the sense or th ...

determining the mode by which a document is recognised as having been laid. Some such documents are published, as for example the

command paper A command paper is a document issued by the UK Government and presented to Parliament. White papers, green papers, treaties, government responses, draft bills, reports from Royal Commissions, reports from independent inquiries and various govern ...

s issued by the UK Parliament. Others may not be published.

Electronic publishing Electronic publishing (also referred to as publishing, digital publishing, or online publishing) includes the digital publication of e-books, Online magazine, digital magazines, and the development of digital library, digital libraries and catalo ...

is common for documents laid in recent decades.

Parliamentary privilege Parliamentary privilege is a legal immunity enjoyed by members of certain legislatures, in which legislators are granted protection against civil or criminal liability for actions done or statements made in the course of their legislative duties. ...

may extend to documents published; the

Parliamentary Papers Act 1840 The Parliamentary Papers Act 1840 (3 & 4 Vict c 9) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Act was passed in response to the case of '' Stockdale v Hansard'' where it was held that the House of Commons enjoyed no privilege as to ...

provided this for UK papers. The Irish Department of Finance guidelines state, "It should be especially noted that documents to be laid before the Houses of

Oireachtas The Oireachtas (, ), sometimes referred to as Oireachtas Éireann, is the Bicameralism, bicameral parliament of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The Oireachtas consists of: *The President of Ireland *The bicameralism, two houses of the Oireachtas ...

must not be published before being so laid. A breach of this direction is a serious infringement of parliamentary privilege."Department of the Taoiseach 2006, §4

References

Sources

Citations

External links

Oireachtas library
scans of documents laid before the Houses of the

of Ireland
Documents laid
before the

Welsh Assembly The Senedd (; ), officially known as the Welsh Parliament in English and () in Welsh, is the devolved, unicameral legislature of Wales. A democratically elected body, it makes laws for Wales, agrees certain taxes and scrutinises the Welsh Gove ...

Government documents Westminster system Parliamentary procedure {{legislature-stub