PROTECTION OF LIFE (IRELAND) BILL. (Hansard, 10 March 1846)

The EARL of SHAFTESBURY
brought up the Report on this Bill.

The LORD CHANCELLOR
moved an Amendment on the First Clause, which gives a discretionary power to the Lord Lieutenant to proclaim a district, judging of the state of crime generally from the official information before him.

The MARQUESS of CLANRICARDE
suggested that the sending of threatening notices should be included in the list of crimes which would justify the proclaiming of a district.

The LORD CHANCELLOR
thought it would be dangerous to introduce any such clause as that recommended relative to threatening notices. It would be, in his opinion, giving encouragement to crime, for any individual might sit down and write a hundred notices of the kind addressed to himself.

The EARL of WICKLOW
said, he had previously suggested that instead of a man being detained in custody for a period of six or seven days to wait for the petty sessions, he should, if arrested under this Bill, be brought before the nearest magistrate; and if he should there show sufficient cause, be admitted to bail to appear before another tribunal.

§ The EARL of ST. GERMANS
had no doubt that the objection raised to the clause had no foundation. The fact of there being a stipendiary magistrate in every district would ensure a petty session, and at once do away with the objection raised of a man being kept in confinement to await the meeting of such bench.

The EARL of BESSBOROUGH
was opposed to any measure which would empower the police to march a man twenty miles from his home to a county jail or town, to be tried by a petty session, without strong proof of his guilt, when an equally stringent investigation might be made in the presence of the most convenient magistrate.

§ LORD MONTEAGLE
expressed himself very much disappointed, that after what had been stated in the House on the previous night, the noble Earl had not introduced an Amendment giving power to the arresting constable to take a prisoner immediately before the nearest magistrate, in cases where petty sessions would not be held for several days after the arrest. He thought it would be exceedingly hard for a man, who was probably innocent, to be arrested, say on the evening of the day on which the weekly petty sessions were held, and to be kept in confinement for a whole week, without any one having power to release him. He was clearly of opinion that prisoners ought at once to be taken before a single magistrate, without waiting for the petty sessions.

The LORD CHANCELLOR
said, it was desirable that the Bill should not go down to the other House of Parliament without having received the general assent of their Lordships, and he therefore proposed to let this clause stand over till the third reading of the Bill, and in the meantime he would reconsider it, and endeavour to meet their Lordships' views.

The MARQUESS of CLANRICARDE
thought it was of the utmost importance that power should be vested in one magistrate either to bail or discharge any man who had been wrongfully arrested by a 842 policeman. He did not attach much weight to the argument that no one magistrate would undertake the responsibility, because he (the Marquess of Clanricarde) was of opinion that if a magistrate was afraid to discharge his duty, he ought not to be allowed to continue in the commission of the peace. But he had no fear that any magistrate would be afraid to discharge his duty, either by remanding the accused, if he thought the circumstances of the case warranted, or of admitting him to bail.

The EARL of WICKLOW
That's my proposition.

§ The EARL of ST. GERMANS
did not conceive that the clause, as it at present stood, imposed any hardship upon the prisoner. If an individual magistrate was to have the power of admitting an accused person to bail, or of dismissing or committing him, they would be making that magistrate a judge of the guilt or innocence of the prisoner.

§ The DUKE of RICHMOND
was decidedly opposed to the present clause. He was of the same opinion as the noble Marquess (Clanricarde), that the prisoner should be immediately taken before a magistrate, and if there was no primâ facie case against him, that the magistrate should have the power to dismiss him, or hold him to bail; and, on the contrary, if there was a clear case made out, that he should have the power to commit to the petty sessions, if he thought that, by allowing bail, the prisoner would elude justice. He thought they should not insert any clause in the Bill which was unnecessarily stringent.

§ The EARL of DEVON
could not agree with the clause in its present shape; he thought the same privilege should be given to offenders against this law as was given to every class of criminals in England and Ireland — namely, that upon being accused of a crime, they should be carried before a magistrate immediately, who, upon hearing the nature of the charge, would decide whether he could receive bail or not.

§ The EARL of ST. GERMANS
said, after what had passed from noble Lords, he did not feel himself justified in persisting in the clause, as it at present stood, and therefore proposed to postpone it for consideration until the third reading of the Bill.

The LORD CHANCELLOR
said, there were two alterations in reference to this clause; one was that suggested by the 843 noble Earl (Wicklow) that the prisoner should be carried before a single magistrate, who should either discharge him, or bail, or commit him to the petty sessions, where it would be decided whether there was a sufficient case to send him to trial. The other alternative was, that the magistrate should have the power to discharge a prisoner, or bail, or commit him for trial at the assize at once, without the intervention of the petty sessions at all. It would perhaps be better to get rid of the incumbrance of petty sessions, instead of trying a man as it were three times—first before a magistrate, then in a more formal manner by the petty sessions, and lastly at the assizes. He thought perhaps if the prisoner went direct from the magistrates to the assizes, he would go with less prejudice and more advantage to himself, than if he went through all the usual machinery of petty sessions.

The MARQUESS of CLANRICARDE
said the petty sessions was a very important point. It was quite true a prisoner might go with disadvantage to himself from a petty session to an assize, but then perhaps it might so happen that he would not go at all.

§ EARL GREY
entirely concurred in the alternative which had been mentioned by the noble and learned Lord upon the Woolsack.

LORD CAMPBELL
regretted that the Government had not adopted a suggestion that had been thrown out to classify these offences, so as to make being out after sunset simple misdemeanor, and being out with arms or with some unlawful purpose an aggravated misdemeanor. He remembered that twenty years ago, when it was proposed to mitigate the criminal code, the argument used was, that these things might with safety be left to the discretion of the Judge; and yet it had been found necessary since to abolish capital punishment in several instances.

§ LORD COTTENHAM
said, it was somewhat anomalous that in the existing White-boy Act the crime of being found not only under suspicious circumstances, but actually guilty of an offence, was only punished with imprisonment; whilst it was proposed by the present Bill to render a man liable to transportation who should be found away from his habitation in a proclaimed district after sunset. He was decidedly of opinion that some such distinction 844 as that proposed by the noble Earl (Stradbroke), on the previous evening, should be adopted.

The LORD CHANCELLOR
would refer the noble and learned Lord to his noble and learned Friend beside him for an explanation, the words in question having been taken from an Act introduced by that noble and learned Lord some years ago. The noble and Lord asked what were suspicious circumstances? If a person when challenged attempted to run away, or if he were found with concealed arms about him, those would be circumstances of suspicion. The noble and learned Lord then said, this Bill was irreconcilable with the Whiteboy Act in this respect. The Whiteboy Act was applicable to all circumstances and all times; but the present measure was applicable only to particular times, and to districts that were proclaimed; and it was intended that a crime committed in a proclaimed district, should be punished with greater severity than elsewhere.

LORD CAMPBELL
said, it was a mistake to suppose that there was any analogy between this measure and the Whiteboy Act. It was true there was a clause in that Act which punished a party for being out after sunset under suspicious circumstances; but the offence was made in that Act a simple misdemeanor, punishable by fine and imprisonment; but this Bill punished a party apprehended under suspicious circumstances with transportation for seven years, whereas the actual offence was punishable only by imprisonment.

The LORD CHANCELLOR
remarked, that his answer had no reference to the extent of the punishment, but merely to what were suspicious circumstances; and upon that point he had referred his noble and learned Friend for an explanation to the noble and learned Lord (Campbell) who was the author of a Bill which was open to the same objection.

§ LORD COTTENHAM
observed, that it was no answer to an absurdity in this Bill to say that at some previous time something equally absurd had been introduced into another Bill. What he wished to call attention to was the fact that this Bill punished the suspicion of an act in a proclaimed district, more severely than they punished the offence itself in other places.

The LORD CHANCELLOR
But in the proclaimed districts offenders would be 845 punished not under the Whiteboy Act, but under this Bill.

§ LORD COTTENHAM
There were many offences recognised by the Whiteboy Act which this Bill did not touch, and which, if punished at all in the proclaimed districts, must be punished under the Whiteboy Act.

The LORD CHANCELLOR
If a man is found out of his house after night in a proclaimed district under suspicious circumstances, he will be punished under this Act.

§ EARL GREY
said, it was clear that by this Bill they punished more severely the mere suspicion of an offence, than under the Act of 1833 they did its actual commission. Undoubtedly this was the severest Act ever proposed to Parliament in that respect.