§ Order for Second Reading read.
§ SIR FITZROY KELLYsaid, that it was with great regret he rose to announce that he felt compelled to abandon the Bill for that Session. There was a proposition lying at the root of this all-important question, and worthy of the consideration of those who were opposed to the Bill, and that proposition was that every man in the country had a right to 1774 demand of the Government under which he lived that, before he should be deprived by the irresistible power of the State of his life or liberty, all practical means at least should be exhausted to ascertain whether he was guilty or innocent of the crime with which he was charged. So long as there was no effectual appeal in criminal cases that right was virtually denied to the subjects of this country. For want of such a court of appeal an intolerable evil had arisen in the practice which had grown up in the office of the Secretary of State for the Home Department. Under the name of the exercise of the prerogative of mercy, the office of the Home Secretary had become of late years merely and simply a court of criminal appeal without any of the qualities and powers which belonged to a court of justice. The result was, that the greatest possible dissatisfaction at the decisions of the Home Office in these matters had been excited, for no one could tell whether those decisions had been correctly arrived at. Various accidental circumstances had from time to time prevented his proceeding with the present Bill, and he had been disappointed in mitigating the serious opposition which existed to it in certain quarters. Though he believed that he had the authority of the greater number of the Judges in Westminster Hall in favour of the measure, yet he feared that the Government were opposed to it both in principle and detail, and, consequently, he felt that at that period of the Session it would be a waste of public time were he to enter at large into the question. He moved, therefore, that the order of the day for the second reading of the Bill should be discharged, giving notice at the same time that at the commencement of next Session he would submit to the consideration of the House a similar measure.
THE SOLICITOR GENERALobserved that had the discussion come on, he would have been prepared to show that there were grave objections to the Bill, and that the measure could not be adopted without great inconvenience.
§ Order discharged: Bill withdrawn.