§ MR. PICKERSGILLI beg to ask the Attorney General whether his attention has been drawn to a report of the observations made by Mr. Justice Wills, in directing the grand jury at the Flint Assizes on the 23rd ultimo to throw out a bill which had been preferred against a, man for committing perjury in evidence given on his own behalf upon his trial for an offence under the Criminal Law Amendment Act, when the learned judge described the proceeding as an attempt to try the man for perjury in saying that he was not guilty of the accusation, and denying the circumstances of the story told against him, and characterised the committal as an entire mistake founded on the misapprehension of a properly well-known principle that was at the root of the administration of justice; whether, in accordance with this view of the law, and in performance of his statutory duty of supervising the director of public prosecutions, he proposes to instruct that officer not to prosecute in such cases which may arise under the Evidence in Criminal Cases Bill of the present Session; and whether he will enter a nolle prosequi on behalf of the Crown if such prosecutions should be instituted by other persons?
SIR R. WEBSTERI have seen a report of the case referred to in the first paragraph of the Question of the honourable and learned Member. I do not propose to give any general directions of the kind suggested in the second paragraph, or to give any pledge of the character suggested in the third. Every case must depend upon its own facts.