Lord Broughamsaid, he had two petitions to present, to which he called the particular attention of his noble Friend on the Woolsack, complaining of a grievous injury inflicted under colour of the law by two magistrates of the town of Leicester, whom he would abstain from naming, but whom he understood to be men of the most respectable character. One of the petitions was from a poor man named Thomas Lukin, and the other was from Ann Ward, who was a poor widow 58 years of age. One had been called upon to pay a poor rate of 5s. 4½d., and the other a rate of 3s. 4d.; in default of payment an order was made for a distress on their goods; but as they were only lodgers, there were no goods on which to make the levy; after that failure to levy, an order was made (and he admitted legally made) for the commitment of those persons for non-payment of the several sums they were required to pay. The order for committal, be it observed, made no mention of costs. On going to the gaol some benevolent person paid the amounts of rate for them; consequently they were discharged, and the whole force of the caption and of the order for imprisonment was spent. But he begged their Lordships to observe what followed. The same magistrates, in order that the costs should be paid, which they ought to have directed in the first instance, and made a part of the original order, then made a second order on each of the parties for the payment of 20s. for costs. Twenty-shillings costs!—six times the amount of the one sum, and four times the amount of the other, in order that the justices' clerk might be paid his fees, which he had not been paid before. Whereupon those two unhappy individuals were summoned, and both being penniless, and having already been proved the one unable to pay 5s. 4½d., the other 3s. 4d.—they were both called upon to pay 20s. for costs. As a condition precedent to being heard in their own case, they were asked to pay 20s. each, on the assumption that 113 parties who could not pay 5s. 4½d. and 3s. 4d. could produce 20s. "We have not got that sum," they naturally said. "Then," was the reply, "you must go to prison" (for they had the order of the justices made without hearing the parties), "and be imprisoned in the house of correction for one calendar month, and kept to hard labour." It was the first time he had ever known that imprisonment for debt was to be accompanied by a sentence to hard labour: these parties, however, were sentenced to hard labour, which no person in this land could be made to suffer even for a breach of the law and a criminal act, unless it were an act of so infamous a character that it was taken out of the common class of misdemeanors. But undoubtedly there was a Statute—he did not deny that the 18th Geo. III., cap. 19, gave a general power to justices to imprison a person in the house of correction, and keep him to hard labour for a term not exceeding one month, and not less than ten days, if the costs of any complaint made before justices were not paid. But by the Statute the costs were directed to be paid to "the injured party," which seemed plainly to indicate that the Act applied only to cases of wrongful acting; nevertheless here the justices held their clerk to be the injured party; and by that ample, extensive, and liberal construction of the Act, the sentence was pronounced of imprisonment for one month—the maximum extent of punishment, with hard labour, on these poor penniless persons. They might have committed many misdemeanors of a serious nature, and not have been imprisoned; but their only offence was their poverty. First, he made no complaint against the magistrates for ordering the levy in the first instance. Secondly, he did not complain of the month's imprisonment which they had ordered in the exercise of their judicial discretion; and however he might think they were entirely wrong—however completely he might feel that he himself should have been utterly incapable of pronouncing such a sentence—though he should have shuddered at passing such a sentence upon this poor old pauper man and woman, who were living absolutely upon nothing, because they could not pay 20s. each for costs to the clerk—he repeated, that though he should have shuddered at the very thought of such a sentence, still he would not call it an inhuman sentence, nor did he doubt the legality or propriety of it. These magistrates were acting judi- 114 cially, and they might have acted lawfully and humanely—if it were not bitter irony to talk of humanity in such a case. They might have mistaken the law — magistrates were always candidly construed in their conduct when they made legal errors; but one thing he would take leave to say, and it was that they had no right to issue their order for imprisonment without having heard the parties. He was told that they were men of high respectability. They might be so; but they would be pleased henceforth to learn, if hitherto they had not learned the lesson, that no respectability could enable a man or a magistrate to place himself above the law. Not only the law of the land, the Statute law, or the common law, known only to the learned lawyer, and not to the layman, but a law which was written in every man's heart, be he lawman or layman, had decreed that before you decide you must hear; before you condemn, you must see the party; and that the grossest outrage that could be committed by any judge was to dare to sentence a man without hearing him in his defence. He would now leave the case in the hands of this noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor, who would inquire into the particulars of it. He (Lord Brougham) knew that these men had confessed the whole of what he had stated. They had confessed it by their clerk, for whose behoof the act was done of which he complained. They did not deny it at all. They did not pretend that the order for the costs was made in the first instance; they did not pretend that they saw the parties before they committed them, much less did they pretend to deny that the one month's imprisonment with hard labour to which these parties were sentenced, had almost expired, when the wise and prompt humanity of his right hon. Friend at the head of the Home Department the very instant he heard the statement which he (Lord Brougham) had made, interposed and liberated them from what remained of the sentence, unhappily but a couple of days. He handed over these two justices, not to their Lordships, but to his noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack. If he thought they were men fit to continue in the administration of justice in England, he should be satisfied that they did so remain; but with the feeling of satisfaction he might, perhaps, also have the feeling of astonishment.
The Lord Chancellorsaid, he would inquire into the case to ascertain the facts, 115 and if he found that these magistrates had conducted themselves in the manner stated by his noble and learned Friend, it would be his duty to remove them at once from the commission of the peace. But he must make the necessary inquiry. He understood, however, that these parties had been released by his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department.
§ The Duke of Richmondhad been asked to second the Petition which had been presented to the House by his noble and learned Friend, and he begged to suggest to their Lordships, whether, after his noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack had investigated the case, their Lordships should not inquire whether there was not some legal remedy against the men who had so illegally committed these poor persons to prison, because he considered that if there was no law to give these parties redress against the constable who took them to prison, without their case having been heard, the sooner the law was amended in that respect the better.
The Lord Chancellorsaid, there was no doubt that if these individuals had been improperly imprisoned, without the necessary proceedings having been gone through, they would be entitled to damages.
Lord Campbellsaid, that for the honour of the law of the land, if a case of such hardship as had been stated were made out, the parties would be redressed by the verdict of a jury.