§ MR. REDMONDasked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, If he is aware that the Judges in the Court of Queen's Bench in Ireland refused inquiry into the circumstances connected with the sentences of imprisonment passed on members of the Ladies' Land League, on the ground that the statute of Edward III. gave magistrates power to call on persons to give bail, and that it was not necessary that any offence should be proved, but only that the persons should be suspected by the magistrates of being likely to commit an offence at some future date; and, whether persons imprisoned under this statute are debarred from the right they would have if tried and sentenced in the ordinary way at Petty Sessions of establishing their innocence by an appeal should their sentences exceed one month?
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)Sir, the Court of Queen's Bench in Ireland has not refused inquiry into the circumstances connected with the sentences of imprisonment passed on members of the Ladies' Land League on the ground stated in the Question of the hon. Member, or at all. On the contrary, that Court, in the exercise of its ordinary jurisdiction, has reviewed the orders referred to in this Question, which required surety for good behaviour, and adjudicated both on their technical legality, and also whether the magistrates had, under the circumstances of the case, jurisdiction to make them. Such orders are not summary convictions, and, therefore, not the subject of the appeal mentioned in the Question, but are removable into the Queen's Bench, and are there reviewed.
§ MR. REDMONDinquired if he had interpreted the Statute properly?
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON), in reply, said, he had not. He had attributed to it a punitive character which it did not possess.
§ MR. HEALYasked whether this Statute of Edward III. was not one of those which Mr. Justice Holker had scheduled in the Criminal Code Bill among those which ought to be repealed?
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON), in reply, said, he did not know whether or not this was the case; but the Statute had been enforced both in England and Ireland until the present time, and magistrates acquired their jurisdiction in part from it, and in part from their Commission.