CONSTITUTIONAL LAW - POWER OF LEGISLATIVE INVESTIGATING COMMITTEE TO SUPERSEDE GRAND JURY

The court of quarter sessions of Dauphin County ordered a grand jury investigation of alleged criminal misconduct by civil officers of the commonwealth. The governor then issued a call for a special session of the legislature. When this body had convened, seven members of the House of Representatives were appointed a committee to investigate the charges against those civil officers liable to impeachment. This committee sought a writ of prohibition to restrain the quarter sessions court from proceeding with the grand jury investigation, in pursuance of a statute enacted at the special session of the legislature giving the legislative investigating committee priority over all other investigations of the same charges.

Held, that the act was a deprivation of the exercise of a judicial power vested in the court by the constitution of the commonwealth. In re Investigation by Dauphin County Grand Jury (No. 2) 332 Pa. 342, 2 A. (2d) 804 (1938).