By the twentieth article of the declaration of rights, in the constitution of
this Commonweal*, it is declared, that "the power of suspending the laws,
or the execution of the laws, ought never to be exercised but by the legisla-
ture, or by authority derived from it, to be exercised in such particular cases
only as the legislature shall expressly provide for." Many of the articles in
that declaration of rights were adopted from the Magna Charier of England,
and from the bill of rights, passed in the reign of William and Mary (1).
The bill of rights contams an enumeration of the oppressive acts of James
2d tending to subvert and extirpate the protestant religion, and the laws and
liberties of the kingdom : and the £rst of them is the " assuming and exer- '
<;ising a power of dispensing with, and suspending the laws, and the execu-
tion of the laws, ivithout consent of parliament" The first article in the
claim or declaration of rights contained in the statute is, that the exercise of
such power, by regal authority, without consent of parliament, is illegal. In
the tenth section of the same statute it is further declared and enacted, that
" no dispensation by non obstante of or to any statute, or any part thereof
should be allowed ; but the same should be held void and of no efiect : ex-
cept a dispensation be allowed of in such statute." There is an implied
reservation of authority in the parliament to exercise the power here men-
tioned : because according to the theory of the English constitution, " that
absolute despotic power, which must in all governments reside somewhere,"
is entrusted to the parliament (2).
