Scope of the Joint Committee
5. This Committee first met on 11 July 2012
to consider procedural questions and to determine the scope of
our consideration of the petitions. The two Chairmen had identified
an anomaly in the statutory framework governing operation of the
Special Parliamentary Procedure, giving rise to an absence of
clarity about the scope of this Joint Committee's consideration
of the petitions referred to it. That anomaly is dealt with in
detail in their Report on the petitions.
6. We chose, after hearing contributions from
the parties, to hear the case of each petitioner in full, on the
basis of the petitions as submitted to the two Houses and referred
to us.
| 
