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Cast your votes.
Has every delegate voted? Does any dele-
gate desire to change his vote?
(There was no response.)
The Clerk will record the vote.
There being 17 votes in the affirmative
and 88 in the negative, the motion is lost.
The amendment is rejected.
Delegate Gallagher, do you desire to offer
your Amendment AB?
DELEGATE GALLAGHER: Mr. Chair-
man, I do and I will be very brief about it.
THE CHAIRMAN: Very well.
The pages will distribute Amendment
AB. This will be Amendment 21.
Delegate Gallagher, while the amendment
is being read, would you consider whether
in line 9 the word "and" ought to be "or"?
The Clerk will read the amendment.
READING CLERK: Amendment No. 21
to Committee Recommendation R&P-2, by
Delegate Gallagher:
On page 4 following line 19 of section
13, Imprisonment for Debt, add the follow-
ing new section :
"Section 14. Legislative and Executive
Investigations
"No person's right to fair and just treat-
ment in the course of legislative and exec-
utive investigations shall be infringed."
THE CHAIRMAN: The amendment has
been proposed by Delegate Gallagher.
Is there a second?
(Whereupon, the amendment was duly
seconded.)
THE CHAIRMAN: The amendment hav-
ing been seconded, the Chair recognizes
Delegate Gallagher.
DELEGATE GALLAGHER: Mr. Chair-
man, ladies and gentlemen:
First I would agreee that the word "and"
on line 9 ought to read "or", so it would be
"legislative or executive", and I request
permission of the Committee of the Whole
to make that amendment.
THE CHAIRMAN: The amendment is
modified to change the word "and" to "or"
in line 9, there being no objection.
Delegate Gallagher.
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DELEGATE GALLAGHER: Mr. Chair-
man, ladies and gentlemen of the Commit-
tee: This particular amendment is offered
and it is word for word from a section
that was contained in the report of the
Constitutional Convention Commission. It
was omitted from the Legislative Commit-
tee's report because it also applied to the
executive branch.
An examination of the law would indi-
cate that even though our constitution and
the federal Constitution would guarantee
due process to witnesses appearing before
legislative bodies and their committees,
and executive agencies as well, that never-
theless the scope of due process would not
extend to a genuine fair treatment of these
witnesses. And as you will see from the
memorandum which is submitted and
marked AB, in a leading case, Hannah v.
Marr, decided by the Supreme Court in
1960, it was specifically held that the re-
quirements of due process were satisfied
even when subpoenaed witnesses were not
given an opportunity to know who com-
plained against them, what the nature of
the complaint was, when they had no op-
portunity afforded for confrontation and
cross examination of the complaining wit-
nesses.
It would seem to me that one thing that
we want to prohibit is the inclination of
legislative bodies to go on fishing expedi-
tions. It would seem to me that in grant-
ing the powers to committees to subpoena
witnesses that we would want to guarantee
that a legislative committee would not want
to hold someone up to scorn and to have
them punished simply because what they
believed was out of step with what was
popular.
Consequently, I believe it incumbent upon
this Convention to see to it that we have a
constitutional provision which requires fair
and just treatment. How this will be im-
plemented, of course, will fall into the
hands of the General Assembly itself, or
to the executive bodies of the State. But
it seems to me that we do not go far
enough when we simply provide for due
process. We must take the further step
and guarantee that witnesses who are sub-
poenaed against their will on many occa-
sions will not be the objects of ill treatment.
Consequently, I would urge the adoption
of this amendment.
THE CHAIRMAN: For what purpose
does Delegate Case rise?
DELEGATE CASE: Mr. Chairman, I
would like to ask the sponsor of this amend-
ment two questions, if I may.
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