§ House in Committee (according to Order).
§ Clause 1 (Short title) agreed, to,
135§ Clause 2 (Appointment of Director of Public Prosecutions).
§ LORD COLERIDGEdesired to call his noble and learned Friend's attention to the fact that, under this clause, it was provided that the Public Prosecutor, or Director of Public Prosecutions, as he was to be termed, and his Assistants in the country, should be appointed by the Home Secretary, and not by the Attorney General. He objected to this arrangement, and would move, as an Amendment, that the appointments be made by the Attorney General, who, from his legal knowledge, would be better able than the Home Secretary to make the selections. He disclaimed any hostility to the present Home Secretary; this was not the original proposal of the Bill, but was a piece of patronage forced on that right hon. Gentleman by the House of Commons.
§ Amendment moved, in line 9, leave out ("A Secretary of State") and insert ("The Attorney General.")—(The Lord Coleridge.)
THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, he would remind his noble and learned Friend that the House of Commons provided the funds for the institution of this peculiar office of Director of Public Prosecutions, and it had required that the responsibility should be in the hands of the Home Secretary. He thought the House of Commons was quite right in doing that. The positions of the Home Secretary and the Attorney General in the administration of the Criminal Law were essentially different. The Home Secretary was the head of a great Department, and was responsible to Parliament for the general system of the administration of the Criminal Law of the country, and the Attorney General was not. The Attorney General was responsible only for the way in which he discharged the duties of his own Office. He had never heard of patronage of this description being placed in the hands of the Attorney General; and while the Secretary of State could be called to account in Parliament for the manner in which he had exercised it, it would not be so with the Attorney General.
§ LORD SELBORNEsaid, that the administration of justice in this country was in a somewhat anomalous position as regarded public officers, the functions which should be vested in a single 136 Minister of Justice being at present distributed over four different Departments. The Lord Advocate of Scotland discharged similar functions to those which his noble and learned Friend proposed to give the Attorney General for England. The proposal of his noble and learned Friend (Lord Coleridge), therefore, was in accordance with that precedent. If English precedents were regarded, the Judges in England were all appointed, not by the Home Secretary, but by the Lord Chancellor or the Prime Minister. The Lord Chancellor—who, if anyone, was the chief Minister of Justice—appointed all the unpaid magistrates, both in boroughs and in counties; and the Treasury, not the Home Office, appointed the Crown Solicitor, by whom all Government prosecutions, and other legal business of a contentious kind, were conducted.
§ On Question? Amendment negatived.
§ Clause agreed to.
§ Clause 3 (Establishment of office of Director of Public Prosecutions) agreed to.
§ Clause 4 (Qualifications of Director of Public Prosecutions and of Assistants).
§ LORD COLERIDGEsaid, the clause provided that the person appointed to be the Chief Director should be either a barrister-at-law or a solicitor of the Supreme Court of Judicature. He thought this an office which required the highest legal training; and he should, therefore, move that the appointment should be restricted to members of the Bar. The matter was different as regarded the Assistants, and he did not desire to interfere with them.
§
Amendment moved, line 22, leave out from ("be") to the end of the clause and insert—
(" In the case of the Director a barrister-at-law in actual practice and of not less standing than ten years, and in the case of an assistant a barrister-at-law or a solicitor of the Supreme Court of Judicature in actual practice and of not less standing than seven years. Neither the Director of Public Prosecution nor any assistant of such Director shall directly or indirectly practice in their profession except in the discharge of their duties under this Act.") —(The Lord Coleridge.)
THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, he could not accept the Amendment. There was no reason why the office should be absolutely restricted to members of the Bar.
§ Amendment negatived.
§ Clause agreed to.
§ Remaining clauses agreed to.
§ Amendments made: the Report there of to be received To-morrow; and Bill to be printed as amended. (No. 121.)