Fascinating special issue of the journal Parliamentary History is out.  Issue 2 of volume 27 contains texts and studies relating to Parliament in the long 15th century.  Articles cover Parliamentary privilege, elections, payment, and other issues.  Three appendices cover a calendar of disputes over wages, a list of peers and members of the commons mentioned in the documents, and and a list of parliaments from 1376-1514.

This period includes the period of the devestation and depopulation relating to the Black Death, the War of the Roses, and the rise of the Tudors.

 Parliament is debating a new counter-terrorism bill, it had it's second reading on the 1st.  The main elements of the bill are:

" 

• a provision to allow the pre-charge detention of terrorist suspects to be extended from 28 days to 42 days in certain circumstances
• changes to enable the post-charge questioning of terrorist suspects and the drawing of adverse inferences from silence
• imposing requirements on people convicted of terrorist offences to let authorities know where they are living and any changes to their circumstances
• enhanced sentencing of offenders who commit offences with a terrorist connection
• provision for inquests and inquiries to be heard without a jury."

 By the way, Parliament has a wonderful bill site, no?

"Legal clean-out purges old laws

By Michael Peel, Legal Correspondent

Published: March 19 2008 03:50 | Last updated: March 19 2008 03:50

Hundreds of allegedly obsolete laws on subjects ranging from the East India Company to servants who impersonate their masters would be scrapped under plans before parliament.

The Ministry of Justice said the pruning of “meaningless and defunct laws” would remove all or part of 328 acts of parliament, although it will leave in force legal oddities such as the rights of British monarchs to the heads and tails of whales caught off the country’s shores."

--More--  

The UK Parliament is planning to put 200 years of its debates online. All Hansard reports from 1804 through 2004 are scheduled to be digitized and posted.  Currently, Handsard debates from November 1988 are available at the Parliament web site.