HC Deb 02 July 1973 vol 859 cc27-8
53. Mr. Ellis

asked the Attorney-General if he is satisfied that the present practice of the random selection of jurors in Welsh courts enables justice to be both seen and heard to be done.

The Attorney-General

Yes, Sir.

Mr. Ellis

Is the Attorney-General aware that in Wales, and for that matter in England, there are British citizens qualified to act as jurors who are not comfortably at home in the English language?

Mr. Greville Janner

There are some in this House.

Mr. Ellis

Is it the Government's view that the principle of random selection of jurors is, as claimed by Lord Justice Edmund Davies in his report to the Lord Chancellor, a supremely important principle? If so, how are British citizens whose command of English is not adequate to follow complicated legal testimony, and who fortuitously find themselves on juries, to play their part in making sure that justice is both seen and heard to be done?

The Attorney-General

On the general point, excluding the question of the Principality, sometimes there are persons eligible to sit on juries who do not have sufficient command of the English language, and in the interests of justice they have to be excluded. As regards the Principality, it is important to bear in mind what Lord Justice Edmund Davies said about the constitutional impropriety and undesirability of excluding perhaps 75 per cent. of the population from any particular case in the circumstances proposed. Not only would it be constitutionally improper, in my view, but it would, I should have thought, be quite impossible to achieve.

Mr. George Thomas

Will the Attorney-General take it that there will be general approval in Wales for what he has just said about the undesirability of dividing our people, and will he note that what Lord Justice Edmund Davies proposed regarding simultaneous translation has received general approval throughout the Principality?

The Attorney-General

I wholly agree with the right hon. Gentleman. As he said, simultaneous translation facilities are the answer to this problem, and I can tell the House that at Mold, Carmarthen and Cardiff arrangements are being made to equip the Crown courts with simultaneous translation facilities.

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