1604: 1 James 1 c.13: Privilege of Parliament Act

1604: 1 James 1 c.13: An act for new executions to be sued against any which shall hereafter be delivered out of execution by privilege of parliament, and for discharge of them out of whose custody such persons shall be delivered.

[An execution against him who is discharged by privilege of parliament.]

Forasmuch as heretofore doubt hath been made, if any person being arrested in execution, and by privilege of either of the houses of parliament set at liberty, whether the party at whose suit such execution was pursued, be for ever after barred and disabled to sue forth a new writ of execution in that case:

II. For the avoiding of all further doubt and trouble which in like cases may hereafter ensue, Be it enacted by the King’s most excellent majesty, by the lords spiritual and temporal* and by the commons, in this present parliament assembled, That from henceforth the party at or by whose suite such writ of execution was pursued, his executors or administrators, after such time as the privilege of that session of parliament in which such privilege shall be so granted shall cease, may sue forth and execute a new writ or writs of execution, in such manner and form as by the law of this realm he or they might have done, if no such former execution had been taken forth or served:

[He shall never be charged, out of whose custody such prisoner shall be delivered.]

(2) and that from henceforth no sheriff, bailiff, or other officer, from whose arrest or custody any such person so arrested in execution shall be delivered by any such privilege, shall be charged or chargeable with or by any action whatsoever, for delivering out of execution any such privileged person, so as is aforesaid by such privilege of parliament let at liberty; any law, custom or privilege heretofore to the contrary notwithstanding.

[Censure inflicted upon any that shall arrest a parliament-man.]

III. Provided always, That this act, or any thing therein contained, shall not attend to the diminishing of any punishment to be hereafter by censure in parliament inflicted upon any person which hereafter shall make or procure to be made any such arrest as is aforesaid.

Source: Pickering, Statutes at Large, vol. 7.

Further reading: Wikipedia.

Note: The regnal code for this act, as with all from this session of parliament, is sometimes given as 2 James 1.