Hansard
Hansard is the title of the official protocol records of the sessions of the British Parliament as well as the parliaments of various states that formerly belonged or still belong to the British Empire or the Commonwealth of Nations. The name Hansard is derived from Thomas Curson Hansard , the long-time printer and editor of the records of the sessions of the British Parliament.
The Hansard contains the recordings of parliamentary speeches and debates in a certain legislative body and is thus the Anglo-Saxon counterpart to the transcripts of the German parliamentary sessions in the successor states of the British Empire, which are published as "Stenographic Reports / Plenary Minutes". A Hansard usually consists of the collected minutes of verbal utterances as well as isolated particularly important non-verbal actions from all parliamentary sessions of an electoral term or the parliamentary sessions of a certain section of an electoral term.
In addition to the original Hansards, in which the sessions of the Parliament of Westminster in London can be traced, Hansards are made for the parliamentary sessions of the following countries: Canada , Australia , South Africa , New Zealand , Malaysia , Singapore , Brunei , Hong Kong , Sri Lanka , Trinidad and Tobago , Kenya , Tanzania and Jamaica .
Historical background
Until 1771, only the decisions and measures, but not the debates of the British upper and lower houses had been published. As public interest in the debates, especially in the House of Commons, grew, several parliamentarians began to publish unofficial reports of the course of the meetings, which publishers and editors sometimes prepared as meetings of conspiratorial clubs or robber gangs in order to make the reader more "exciting" Offer. Accordingly, these meeting records had names such as "Proceedings of the Lower Room of the Robin Hood Society " or "Debates of the Senate of Magna Lilliputia".
As the publication of statements made in Parliament was still forbidden in the UK at that time, the publishers, authors and editors of these publications were sometimes prosecuted when urged. When even Brass Crosby, Lord Mayor of London, was finally indicted at the behest of Parliament for refusing to punish an editor of secret parliamentary transcripts, violent public protests broke out, which resulted in a tacit abandonment of previous parliamentary policy led: The publication of parliamentary sessions was now also officially tolerated. As a result, numerous publications sprout from the ground that tried to bring the debates of Parliament to the public, such as the "Parliamentary Register" by John Almon and John Debrett , which was published from 1775 to 1813.
In 1802, William Cobbett began to compete with the register, also to publish records of parliamentary sessions. In 1809 the publisher Thomas Curson Hansard began publishing Cobbett's notes. In 1812 Cobbett sold his publication organ to Hansard when he got into private financial difficulties. The publication was later named after this.
In the first few years Hansard did not employ stenographers who wrote down the statements in Parliament one-to-one, but only reconstructed the parliamentary debates the following day on the basis of the publications of the morning papers by collating the various reports in the various London newspapers. The consequence was, of course, that these notes reproduced the tenor of the parliamentary sessions at best in principle, at worst not at all, and the literal statements at best partially correct, while many formulations were lost. Later, the highest possible degree of precision through careful writing down became the guiding principle of Hansard.
Over time, Hansard asserted itself against competing products such as the Parliamentary Register or Barrows Mirror of Parliamentary Proceedings. In 1889 the parliament took this development into account and granted the Hansard a subsidy, which since then has ensured a seamless recording operation and ensures that the Hansard, as a reference work for parliamentarians and the public, offers the opportunity to call up earlier statements almost verbatim.
As a source for historical research, the Hansard is of eminent importance. Since the 1960s in particular, the Hansard has come into the focus of specialist science, which since then has extensively exploited it as a source for specialist descriptions of people, goals and decisions in British politics.
Individual evidence
- ^ Entry Hansard (Official Report) , in the Glossary of the British Parliament at www.parliament.uk; Retrieved August 26, 2016.