§ MR. STAPLETONmoved for a Select Committee to inquire into the subject of Statutory Declarations and the abuses to which they are liable. These declarations commenced with the statute of the 5th Will. IV. That statute substituted declarations for affidavits in a great many cases there enumerated. But he contended the statute had this further object—namely, to restrict the cases in which declarations could be made to certain definite classes. He relied on the words of the 13th and 18th sections of the Act, also on a decision of Mr. Justice Byles, Rex v. Cox—9 Cox, C. C. 301—which was the last decision on the point. The Attorney General, however, had in answer to a Question of Viscount Bury, given an opinion in the teeth of this decision. It was not for him to say who was right; but he must admit that the practice had not conformed to Mr. Justice Byles's decision. Declarations were received on subjects not within the categories mentioned in the statute. But although the practice conformed to the Attorney General's opinion on this point, there was another point on which it was entirely at variance with his opinion. It was the practice for the magistrates' clerk to read the declarations, and decline to lay any he might consider objectionable before the magistrate, subject to an appeal to the magistrate himself. It was to this practice that the authorities at the Mansion House, at Liverpool, and at the metropolitan police courts, attributed the rareness of the abuse of these declarations which they supposed to exist. The Attorney General did not approve of this practice, for he had said that—
The magistrate was bound to receive these declarations, not to inquire into the circumstances under which they were made; if he did so, he 1032 would be trying cases under very unsatisfactory conditions. The magistrates must trust the attorney who brings the declarations.And in reply to a second Question, given after a letter from the chief clerk at the Mansion House had appeared, he stated that the magistrates who examined into these cases "did it on their own responsibility." He (Mr. Stapleton) feared that the effect of the Attorney General's utterances would be to deter magistrates from continuing to take those precautions which they had hitherto taken. Whether these precautions had been as effectual as the magistrates supposed he could not say. In an article of the 14th March, The Times had stated that the practice of making declarations for improper purposes did prevail extensively. He thought he had made out a case for inquiry.
§ The Motion not being seconded—