Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 26 October 1949.
Mr Konni Zilliacus
, Gateshead
12:00,
26 October 1949
These gag or thought-control Laws are based upon President Truman's loyalty order. There is the Attorney-General's list of subversive organisations numbering 150, the Mundt-Ferguson Bill which creates again the offence of holding politically subversive thoughts, and other developments. They have been given a tremendous impetus by the trial of the eleven Communists. The trial was one of doctrines and ideas. All the defendants were sentenced to five years' imprisonment, with one exception, a war-decorated hero, who got only three years, because they were Communists.
These men were sentenced, not because of anything, they had done that was against the law, but for holding certain political opinions. And for good measure the lawyers for the defence were then given six months each for contempt of court by Judge Harold Medina, who conducted himself rather on the lines of the warning given by the pantomime policeman that, "Everything you say will be taken down, altered and used against you."
Laws are the rules by which a country is governed. Britain has a long history of law making and the laws of this country can be divided into three types:- 1) Statute Laws are the laws that have been made by Parliament. 2) Case Law is law that has been established from cases tried in the courts - the laws arise from test cases. The result of the test case creates a precedent on which future cases are judged. 3) Common Law is a part of English Law, which has not come from Parliament. It consists of rules of law which have developed from customs or judgements made in courts over hundreds of years. For example until 1861 Parliament had never passed a law saying that murder was an offence. From the earliest times courts had judged that murder was a crime so there was no need to make a law.
