[BILL 34.] SECOND READING. (Hansard, 16 February 1871)

§ THE ATTORNEY - GENERAL
, in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, its object was the repeal of one section of an Act passed last year to regulate the whole subject of constituting and summoning juries. He must explain that towards the close of last Session he was not aware the Bill was about to be pressed to the third reading, as he believed it was understood that it should be allowed to stand over for reconsideration this year. Indeed, he did not know the Bill had passed till he read it in the statute book. The clause which he now proposed to repeal enacted that juries should be paid, and paid not by the whole body of suitors, but by means of a tax imposed solely on those who entered causes for trial. No machinery was provided by the Act for carrying it into execution, that being left to the Judges, who had accordingly issued the best rules and regulations they could devise. These, however, had been extremely onerous to the suitors. The rules required that every suitor who desired to have his cause tried by a common jury should pay £3 on entering his cause; and that for a special jury £12 12s. should be paid. Now, it frequently happened that a cause was amicably settled after it had been entered, so that no jury was required at all, but nevertheless the money could not be returned to the suitor. He was told that in the country the Act could not be worked at all. A Judge of considerable eminence had written to him in the following terms:—"I know that the existing Act amounts to a denial of justice to poor suitors. I know that on circuit it is impossible to carry it out. It ought to be repealed in the shortest possible time." Other Judges and eminent practitioners had expressed a similar opinion. For his own part, he was by no means satisfied it was a good thing to pay jurors, as the effect might be to create a professional class of jurors. He would not argue that point now; but, assuming that jurors ought to be paid, he was disposed to think they should be paid, and not by the litigants. At present, however, it was sufficient for him to state that there would be a dead-lock at the 373 approaching assizes if the clause he had referred to was not repealed, and, as they had already commenced on the Northern Circuit, there was no time to be lost. By the present Bill, therefore, he proposed to repeal that clause at once; and later in the Session, if the House confirmed the principle involved in the clause, another measure might be devised for carrying it into effect. Considering the urgency of the case, he hoped the House would assent at once to the second reading of the Bill.

MR. LOPES
thanked the hon. and learned Gentleman for the prompt attention he had given to the matter, and said that the effect of the Act, combined with the rules of the Judges, was that officers of the Superior Courts found themselves bankrupt. Assuming that at an assizes there were two common jury causes, which were tried on the first day, and one special jury cause, which was tried on the second day, the receipts would be £18 12s., and the payments authorized by the Act would amount to £49 16s.; and this proportion of receipts to payments would probably hold good with any number of causes. A learned Judge, who had just gone to the Welsh Circuit, had said he should be obliged to tell the jurors that, although the Act said they were to be paid, there were no funds out of which they could be paid. He hoped that the matter would not rest where it was, but that the Attorney-General would, bring in a comprehensive measure, and that he would not be satisfied with piecemeal legislation, but would introduce a Bill founded on rational and acknowledged principles applicable to the case.

§ MR. ASSHETON CROSS
said, it was desirable that the Bill should be passed at once, and he trusted that it would be carried through all the stages as fast as possible. He thought the Law Officers of the Crown were hardly justified in pleading that the Act of last Session was passed without their knowledge. The Select Committee recommended that the whole matter should be remitted to this Session, and the history of the Act of last Session, he believed, was that it was promoted by members of the legal profession in the City of London and Westminster, 374 and that, practically, hon. Members, having the bit put in their mouths, ran away with it.

§ MR. D. DALRYMPLE
said, he thought it was competent for the last speaker, as a member of the Select Committee, to have objected to the passing of the measure of last Session. He was not sure that the public were ungrateful for it, because it had largely diminished the number of causes that went to trial. The principle of the payment of jurors, which he approved, was already affirmed by existing practice, as well as by the recommendation of the Select Committee.

§ MR. G. B. GREGORY
said, that provision ought to be made for the proper remuneration of summoning officers.

§ MR. ALDERMAN LUSK
said, he was under the impression that the Act of last Session was considered a good one, for all agreed that it was necessary to pay jurymen. He thought the measure a beneficial one, because it would tend to discourage litigation. He would not, however, oppose this Bill if the Attorney General would promise to consider, during the present Session, the matter with a view to the payment of jurors.

§ MR. WHEELHOUSE
supported the Bill, but thought something should be done not only for the payment of jurors, but for the consideration of the whole question in a comprehensive form.

MR. HENLEY
believed the whole community would be glad that the hon. and learned Attorney General had moved in this matter. As the assizes were close at hand, it was very desirable that the Bill should pass as soon as possible.