§ 66. “Once at Least in Every Year.”
The annual meeting of the Federal Parliament is secured by this section of the Constitution, in accordance with numerous colonial precedents. In the United Kingdom, however, the Queen is only bound by statute to issue writs within three years after the expiration of a Parliament. The guarantee of an annual session is the necessity of providing money for the public service.
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“The annual meeting of Parliament, now placed beyond the power of the Crown by a system of finance, rather than by distinct enactment, had, in fact, been the law of England from very early times. By the statute 4 Edward III., c. 14, ‘it is accorded that Parliament shall be holden every year once, [and] [or] more often if need be.’ And again, in the 36 Edw. III., c 10, it was granted ‘for redress of divers mischiefs and grievances which daily happen [a Parliament shall be holden or] be the Parliament holden every year, as another time was ordained by statute.’ It is well known that by extending the words, ‘if need be,’ to the whole sentence instead of to the last part only, to which they are obviously limited, the kings of England constantly disregarded these laws. It is impossible, however, for any words to be more distinct than those of the 36 Edward III., and it is plain from many records that they were rightly understood at the time. In the 50 Edward III., the Commons petitioned the king to establish, by statute, that a Parliament should be held each year; to which the king replied, ‘In regard to a Parliament each year, there are statutes and ordinances made, which should be duly maintained and kept.’ So also to a similar petition in the 1 Richard II., it was answered, ‘So far as relates to the holding of Parliament each year, let the statutes thereupon be kept and observed; and as for the place of meeting, the king will therein do his pleasure.’ And in the following year the king declared that he had summoned Parliament, because at the prayer of the Lords and Commons it had been ordained and agreed that Parliament should be held each year. In the preamble of the Act 16 Chas. I., c. 1, it was also distinctly affirmed, that ‘by the laws and statutes of this realm, Parliament ought to be holden at least once every year for the redress of grievances: but the appointment of the time and place of the holding thereof hath always belonged, as it ought, to his majesty and his royal progenitors.’ Yet by the 16 Chas. II., c. 1, a recognition of these ancient laws was withheld: for the Act of Charles I. was repealed as ‘derogatory of his majesty's just rights and prerogative’; and the statutes of Edward III were incorrectly construed to signify no more than that ‘Parliaments are to be held very often.’ All these statutes, however, were repealed, by implication, by this Act, and also by the 6 and 7 Will. and Mary, c. 2, which declares and enacts ‘that from henceforth Parliament shall be holden once in three years at the least.’ ” (May's Parl. Prac., pp. 38-40.)