The Associated Press

Wed, Dec 3, 2008 (10:33 a.m.)

Britain's House of Commons Speaker Michael Martin said Wednesday the chamber's head of security gave police the go-ahead to raid a lawmaker's office without a search warrant.

Sergeant-at-arms Jill Pay did not ask police to seek a warrant to search Conservative Party legislator Damian Green's office in an inquiry into government leaks, Martin said.

Police have been forbidden to enter Parliament without the permission of lawmakers since King Charles I sent in troops to arrest a group of legislators in 1642, meaning last Thursday's search broke with more than 300 years of tradition.

But because police were not planning to enter the Commons chamber itself, and had the consent of Pay, they acted within the law, Martin said.

He said that in the future police will need a warrant to make searches of lawmakers' offices.

Officers from London's counterterrorism policing unit raided Green's offices and home following the arrest Nov. 19 of a junior government official who police suspect passed documents from Britain's Home Office to Green.

Neither man has been charged with an offense, but police said their inquiries are continuing.

In a debate sparked by the raid, lawmakers said the search threatens to undermine their work and right to privacy inside Parliament. Legislators say they must be able to keep confidential documents in their offices to hold the government to account.

A lawmaker "exposing embarrassing facts about Home Office policy which ministers are hiding is doing a job in the public interest," Green said, speaking in the Commons.

Paul Stephenson, the acting of London's Metropolitan police, said his officers had carried out their duties according to the law.

"The police must be able to act without fear or favor in any investigation, whomsoever may be involved," he told London's City Hall.