Peer - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition peer

Definition :

Peer, an equal; one of the same rank; a member of the House of Lords, as either Duke, Marquis, Earl, Viscount, or Baron, or Scots or presumably Irish representative peer, although the status of Irish representative peers is apparently undecided owing to the establishment of the Irish Free State. The king cannot create a dignity with a mesne between baron and baronets (Co. Litt. 16, b, Hargrave note 8).

A member of the House of Lords cannot become a member of the House of Commons, nor can be vote at an election to that House, Earr Beauchamp v. Madresfield, (1872) LR 8 CP 245, although an Irish non-representative peer (Lord Rendlesham v. Haward, (1873) LR 9 CP 252); but an Irish non-representative peer may, presumably, be elected a member of the House of Commons for any seat in Great Britain. A peer cannot surrender his dignity to the king so as to affect the rights of his descendants therein (The Norfolk Earldom, 1907, AC 10). See Jac. Law Dict.; Co. Litt. 160.

Under the rule, established by Magna Charta, which applies to every subject of the realm, a peer, indicted for treason or felony, must be tried by his peers, but when an indictment for a felony is found against a peer it is removable by writ of certiorari into the Court of the Lord High Steward (see that title). In 1935, on 12h December, the trial of Lord de Clifford took place on a charge of unlawful killing in connection with a collision by driving on a road. On 4th February, 1936, a motion that the present system of trial of peers by peers has outlived its usefulness, was carried in the House of Lords (see Times, 5th February, 1936).