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Comment by andyjohnson0 | Hacker News Reader

"In another exceptional move, parliament sent a serjeant at arms to his hotel with a final warning and a two-hour deadline to comply with its order. When the software firm founder failed to do so, it’s understood he was escorted to parliament. He was told he risked fines and even imprisonment if he didn’t hand over the documents."

Wow. I've never heard of the British parliament being this assertive before.

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Many consider these powers to be essentially spent: they have not been exercised to any significant extent in a very long time, and since then various changes (e.g. the need to comply with the European Convention on Human Rights) have put them on very shaky ground. If he had refused to go along with the Serjeant at Arms, I suspect nothing would have happened because parliament is keen to avoid a small constitutional crisis over these powers, and to avoid losing even the power of threatening to actually use them. In particular the power to compel witnesses, documents and so on in a process that is entirely separate from the courts could conceivably breach the right to freedom of expression as protected by the ECHR.

I am surprised that he actually complied with this order, especially as the article says the documents were under a US court order restricting their dissemination/publication, but maybe what happened is the Serjeant at Arms appeared with these scary warnings, his lawyers didn't know quite what to do, so they just did what they were told even if they probably didn't have to.

It will be interesting to see what the US court makes of its order being broken due to the order of a foreign legislature.

-- A source on the status of these powers: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18875266

Given that his company is suing Facebook, he was possibly quite happy to comply. He doesn't seem to have lost out, and got a historical trip in the bargain.

I suppose a key question is why did he have thes documents with him in London?

If they’re that key there was th3 risk of the computer being stolen, hard drive encryption aside.

For anyone wondering: the serjeant-at-arms is a mostly ceremonial role that keeps order in the common parts of the Parliament. You mainly see them carrying the Royal Mace, the symbol of executive power that is kept in Parliament for obvious symbolic reasons. They litterally enforce the authority of the Sovreign.

https://www.parliament.uk/about/mps-and-lords/principal/serj...

Sending them in town has no close equivalent in the US, maybe threatening someone to be in Contempt of the Supreme Court.

Probably the closest thing in the US would be a Congressional subpoena. In contrast to the UK Parliament's shakier justification, both Congressional rules and the Supreme Court case Wilkinson v. United States have affirmed that committees can subpoena witnesses.

Sending them in town has no close equivalent in the US, maybe threatening someone to be in Contempt of the Supreme Court.

The US House of Representatives and the US Senate also have Sergeants at Arms:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergeant_at_Arms_of_the_United...

There have been multiple occasions in recent decades when, in theory, either house of Congress could have resorted to enforcement of a Congressional subpoena by sending its Sergeant at Arms to arrest the non-responsive party. The most recent occurrence was early in Trump's term when several of his high officials refused to appear before Congressional committees which sought to question them; there was talk of whether Congress would provoke a showdown by issuing and enforcing subpoenas. And a court ruling during the George W. Bush administration confirmed Congress could compel members of the executive branch to appear and answer questions:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-bush-idUSN31...

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