Three former Labour MPs accused of fiddling their expenses have gone to the highest court in the land in a final attempt to avoid criminal trials.
David Chaytor, Elliot Morley and Jim Devine, who deny theft by false accounting, claim that any investigation into their expenses claims and the imposition of any sanctions "should lie within the hands of Parliament".
Nigel Pleming QC, representing Chaytor and Devine, told a panel of nine Supreme Court Justices that the Parliamentary expenses scheme was part of proceedings in the House. As such, the men are protected by Parliamentary privilege.
He said: "I also wish to emphasise as firmly as I can on behalf of these former MPs that this is not, and never has been, an attempt to take them above or outside the law."
He said the House had "the power to punish, and to recover any monies wrongly claimed, and is well capable of investigating allegations, including allegations of dishonesty, made against its members".
Mr Pleming said it had been recognised in the courts below that the case raised important issues of principle and was without direct precedent.
He said: "So far as we are aware these are the first criminal prosecutions of Members of the House of Commons in relation either to a statement made in or to Parliament or its delegates, or based on a member's dealings with Parliament - for over 300 years. These proceedings have been brought, and conducted, against an extremely adverse, even hostile, media and political background."
It may be some time before the Supreme Court has the chance to consider the scope of Parliamentary privilege, he said. The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, heading a panel of three Court of Appeal judges, earlier this year upheld a ruling by a judge at Southwark Crown Court in central London that they were not protected by privilege.
Lord Pannick QC, representing the Crown Prosecution Service, will be arguing during the two-day hearing that parliamentary privilege or immunity from criminal prosecution has never, ever attached to ordinary criminal activities by Members of Parliament.
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Former Bury North MP Chaytor, 61, of Todmorden, West Yorkshire; ex-Scunthorpe MP Morley, 58, of Winterton, north Lincolnshire; and Devine, 57, of Bathgate, West Lothian, formerly MP for Livingston, are all on unconditional bail and due to face separate trials at Southwark Crown Court.
