HC Deb 27 May 1935 vol 302 cc805-6
The ATTORNEY - GENERAL (Sir Thomas Inskip)

I beg to move, in page 35, line 24, after "person," to insert: being a person qualified to be appointed a judge of a High Court. This is a repetition of a provision already inserted in the corresponding Federal Clause.

4.47 p.m.

Mr. H. WILLIAMS

I take it that the words of the Amendment refer to Clause 218, Sub-section (3), paragraphs (a), (b), (c), and (d). It seems to me that paragraphs (a), (c), and (d) are good, but we are seeking to describe the qualifications of a learned person to perform, in a Province of India, the same functions as are so well performed here by my right hon. and learned Friend who moved the Amendment, and I do not think, if my right hon. and learned Friend's experience had been 10 years in the Civil Service with three years as a district judge, he would in fact have acquired that knowledge of law which an Attorney-General ought to have. We are here defining the qualifications of an Attorney-General, and it seems to me that they are all right except with regard to para- graph (b). That it should be possible to appoint a. person who is not a lawyer at all to the high legal post of the chief legal adviser to the Government of a Province seems to me to be a mistake.

4.48 p.m.

Sir S. HOARE

We have discussed this kind of question over and over again. We discussed it in connection with the qualifications of judges, and I thought then that my right hon. and learned Friend gave a complete answer to the question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon (Mr. H. Williams). He pointed out then that, the kind of experience acquired by Indian civil servants amply qualified them for judicial posts. Moreover, this is a repetition of a, Clause which we passed in the Federal Chapter, and I hope, therefore, we need not delay longer with this discussion.

Amendment agreed to.