LECTURES ON THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION 163
or granted that the Septenial Act was within the lagislative competence of Parliament.
There is another feature of the Septenial Act which should be noted because it helps to explain the extent of the legislative supremacy of Parliament. Parliament could have passed a law extending the life of Parliament and probably no question would have been raised if the Act was made applicable to future Parliaments. But the Septenial Act not only extended the life of all future Parliaments, but it also enlarged the terms of the very Parliament which passed the Act. It was undoubtedly an Act of usurpation of political power not contemplated and not given by law to the Parliament which passed the Act and yet such an Act of usurpation was a legal Act. It is unnecessary to go back so far in the past to cite an authority of the Legislative supremacy of Parliament, as the Septenial Act. A similar exercise of the legislative supremacy was resorted to by Parliament during the late war when the sitting Parliament in 1914 instead of dissolving itself passed an Act extending its own life.
Acts of Indemnity are examples which constantly occur and which serve as sharp reminders of the legislative supremacy of Parliament. An Act of Indemnity is a statute the object of which is to free individuals from penalties imposed upon them by law. This is the highest proof of the legislative supremacy of Parliament, for it imports the legalization of an illegality. legalization of an illegality.
INTERFERENCE WITH PRIVATE RIGHTS
Most legislative assemblies confine their legislative powers to the regulation of the rights of the public in general. Private rights and domestic rights are deemed either to be too particular and too sacred to be interfered with by Parliament. But the British Parliament has never accepted these limitations upon its legislative authority. In the case of the lives of the Duke of Clarence and Clocester, Parliament passed an Act declaring that their daughters and wives should inherit their property although they were alive. In the case of the Duke of Buckingham, he was an infant but Parliament passed an Act declaring that he should be