§ MR. LEIGHTONI beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in the hearing of appeals from petty sessions to quarter sessions, the entire bench of county magistrates, numbering often several hundred persons, have a right to sit and to vote; and whether, in the interests of justice and convenience, the Government will consider the expediency of amending the present system by legislation, or otherwise, so that only a limited number of such magistrates, nominated out of the whole bench every year by the court of quarter sessions, shall sit on appeal cases?
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENTThe answer to the first part of the Question is in the affirmative. I am afraid that there are great difficulties in the way of legislation, and in any case I propose in the first instance to consult the Society of Chairmen of Quarter Sessions.