§ SIR ERSKINE PERRYinquired of the President of the Board of Control, what are the intentions of Her Majesty's Government with respect to the improvement in the administration of justice, and the amalgamation of the courts proposed to Parliament by his predecessor, the present First Lord of the Admiralty?
MR. VERNON SMITHsaid, that his 308 predecessor at the Board of Control had, in introducing the Bill of 1853, promised to appoint a Law Commission, and a Commission was some time since appointed to inquire into the best mode of improving the courts of law in India. That Commission sat three years, and at the end of the third year made a report. It appeared that a difference of opinion existed among the Commissioners, and an account of the proceedings of the Commissioners had in consequence been sent out by him to India, with a request that the whole mode of procedure proposed by the Commissioners, as well as the penal code, should be submitted to the Legislative Council in the form of Acts. With regard to the amalgamation of the Supreme Court and the Sudder Court, he believed it would require an Act of the Imperial Parliament, as the amalgamated courts would require Admiralty jurisdiction. It was, moreover, a point on which great contrariety of opinion existed; and he might observe, that the petition which the hon. and learned Gentleman had presented at an earlier period of the evening entertained a different view of the matter from that held by the hon. and learned Gentleman himself. The whole question could be better discussed in India than in this country, and as soon as he should ascertain the opinion which was adopted on the matter in India, he would take care that that opinion should be considered, and, if agreed to, carried into effect with as little delay as possible.