§ THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGHpresented a Bill to regulate the Mode of Proceeding in Cases of Sentences of Death. The noble Earl said that recent events had shown it to be most desirable, that the law relating to the infliction of capital punishment should be placed upon a more satisfactory basis. It seemed to him to be necessary that the greatest weight and authority should be given to the ultimate decision as to the carrying out the sentence, whatever the sentence might be. It seemed most inexpedient that the final decision in cases of so much importance should be cast upon the sole responsibility of the Home Secretary, and that where the life of any man was concerned it should depend upon the peculiar views or temperament of any particular man. In endeavouring to put an end to the evils of the present practice, and to establish more confidence than was now placed in the decision finally arrived at, he had only to recall his own experience; and though the course he had to propose to their Lordships had not much of the merit yet it had not the inconvenience of novelty. Looking back to his own official experience, extending back a period of more than thirty-five years, he remembered when the Recorder of the City of London presented his report of the capital cases for the decision of Government. In these cases all the principal Members of the Government, with the addition of the Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, were summoned to attend the King, who presided on the occasion, and took part in the discussion. He knew that his late Majesty George the Fourth regarded this duty as one of the most important that he had to discharge. He had no recollection that in those days, under any circumstances, distrust was manifested concerning the decisions arrived at. On the contrary, 1484 they appeared to give general satisfaction. This course of proceeding continued until the accession of Her present Majesty. It was then deemed advisable—and he did not dispute the expediency—that a youthful female sovereign should not be present to adjudicate concerning certain crimes then capitally punishable. He remembered sitting beside the Duke of Wellington when a Bill giving effect to those views was introduced into that House, and though the noble Duke admitted the necessity of the alteration at the commencement of a female reign, yet he deeply regretted the necessity for a change in the course of procedure which had existed for so many years. The penalty of death no longer attached to certain of these crimes, which it was then deemed improper to bring under the notice of a youthful Queen, and that reason for the new system therefore no longer existed. At the same time, he did not propose to place any additional burden on Her Majesty; but, recollecting the value of the solemn proceeding of the Sovereign in Council with regard to decisions or sentences of death, he thought it desirable that it should be revived, with the condition that the presence of the Sovereign should not be insisted upon. His Bill therefore proposed that the final decision upon cases where the life of a subject was concerned should rest with a body of persons selected from the Privy Council, together with the Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench, and not as at present with the Home Secretary alone. The Bill, therefore, to some extent, proceeded upon a revival of the ancient practice to which he had referred. If the principle of the Bill met with approval, he trusted the Government would adopt it, for he felt it was more appropriate that the responsibility of such a measure should rest on them than on an individual peer. If, on the other hand, the Government would not accept the Bill, he hoped that at the earliest opportunity they would submit some proposal of their own on the subject, better than that he now tendered. He was satisfied that the practice of the law ought to be amended, so that the utmost authority and weight should attached decisions in regard to capital sentences, and that the whole responsibility should not be thrown on the Home Secretary alone. Unless the country was made to understand that entire confidence could be placed in the decisions on these questions, 1485 there would be some danger of our being forced to abandon a punishment which he believed to be necessary to the interests of society.
§ Bill read 1a; and to be printed, (No. 58).