Odger's English Common Law

BRIBERY AND CORRUPTION. 191
influence his conduct in respect of any business connected
with such office, is guilty of bribery ; so is the person who
offers such gift or payment. It does not matter whether the
gift or payment is made as a reward for past services or
as an inducement for future favours, nor whether the thing
which the officer is thus bribed to do is in itself a proper or
improper act. It is a bribe whenever it is offered in relation
to business which has been, is being or will be transacted,
so long as it is business which comes before such person in
the way of his office.
' The offence, which is not triable at
Quarter Sessions, is a common law misdemeanour, punishable
by fine or imprisonment. 1
Various statutes have dealt with special instances of the application of
this general rule. Thus by the East India Company Act, 1793, 2 it is a
misdemeanour for any British subject holding office in the East Indies to
demand or receive any sum of money or other valuable thing as a gift or
present. Again, by the Customs Laws Consolidation Act, 1876, 8 any
officer of customs who takes a bribe is liable to a penalty of £500. By
the Inland Revenue Regulation Act, 1890, 4 any collector, officer or person
employed in relation to inland revenue, who asks for or receives any
money or other recompense, or enters into or acquiesces in any collusive
agreement with any person to do or abstain from doing or to conceal or
connive at any act or thing whereby His Majesty is or may be defrauded,
is liable to a penalty of £500, and is on conviction incapable of ever
holding any office under the Crown.
The Public Bodies Corrupt Practices Act, 1889, 6 contains
important provisions for the prevention and punishment of
bribery and corruption by members, officers or servants of
corporations, councils, boards and other public bodies. It
provides that every person commits a misdemeanour who
corruptly solicits, receives or agrees to receive for himself or
for any other person any gift, loan, fee, reward or advantage
whatever as an inducement or reward for or otherwise on
account of any member, officer or servant of a public body
doing or forbearing to do anything in respect of any matter
in which the public body is concerned. 6
The offender may
1 B. v. Wkitaher, [1914] 1 K. B. 1283.
2 33 Geo. III. c. 52, s. 62.
a 39 & 40 Vict. cT 36, s. 217.
1 53&54 Vict. c. 21, s. 10.
« 52 & 53 Vict. c. 69. And see 6 Eilw. VII. c. 34, and 6 & 7 Geo. V. c. 64.
« lb. s. 1 ; see also B. v. Edwards (1895), 59 J. P. 88.