§ MR. FIELDTo ask Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland whether, seeing that it is the duty of each Crown Solicitor in Ireland to procure on every occasion upon which assizes and quarter sessions are held a list of jurors summoned by the sheriff, and to make inquiries relative to the persons summoned, he will explain the nature of these inquiries, and whether they are always, or nearly always, made through the police, even in prosecution cases instituted by the Crown; and whether he will enumerate the various reasons for which a juror may be ordered to stand by.
(Answered by Mr. Cherry.) Each Crown Solicitor is left perfectly free and unfettered as to the persons from whom he should make inquiry as to the character and circumstances of jurors. He is directed not to inquire into the religious or political beliefs of jurors, but otherwise he is left to his discretion as to the nature of the inquiries he is to make. Crown Solicitors, I believe, rely very much on their own knowledge of jurors, supplemented frequently, but not invariably, by information supplied by the local police and other persons with whom they are acquainted. In answer to the second part of the Question, the reasons for which the juror may be ordered to stand by are: affinity to the person on trial, partiality, bodily or mental infirmity rendering them unfit to serve as a juror, or other sufficient ground on which a challenge for cause, if made, could be sustained. In all cases of peculiar local excitement in any particular town or district of the county, it is the duty of the Crown Solicitor, if the panel permit, to set aside all persons returned from that locality.