SECOND READING. (Hansard, 22 June 1882)

VISCOUNT MONCK

, in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, that the measure had been carefully examined in the other House, and had been passed with the approval of the Law Officers of the Crown; its object was to remove an anomaly and to redress a practical grievance. The Bill proposed that the same principle should be applied to judgments of the Inferior Courts as was applied to judgments of the Superior Courts by the Act of 1868, and that power should be given to execute the judgments of the Local Courts in any part of the United Kingdom by the system of registration provided by the Act of 1868. He moved that the Bill be read a second time, and begged to express his readiness to accept Amendments in details.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

said, he had no objection to the principle or object of the Bill; but he had very considerable objection to the manner in which the desired object was attained by the Bill. What he objected to was that a judgment of a Local and Inferior Court should be placed upon the same footing as that of a Superior Court. The Superior Courts of each part of the United Kingdom had general jurisdiction within them, and there was no difficulty in extending it to the other parts of the Kingdom by the Act of 1868; but it was impossible to extend the jurisdiction of the Local and and Inferior Courts in the same way. 12 The County Courts in England carried out to the extent of their jurisdiction the object sought for, by the clerk of one Court sending his warrant to the clerk of another County Court where the defendant lived for the execution of the decree. Other Inferior Courts, both in England, in Scotland, and in Ireland, had similar powers; and he had no objection to the extension of those powers to the other parts of the United Kingdom. As he understood that the noble Lord in charge of the Bill was willing to adopt a different machinery, he would not oppose the second reading of the Bill.