SECOND READING. (Hansard, 15 March 1894)

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord HERSCHELL)
My Lords, this is a Bill which was introduced and passed your Lordships' House last Session, but did not pass into law. The object of the Bill is to carry out certain recommendations of the Council of the Judges in their Report to the Secretary of State, The Bill differs from the Bill of last year in this respect, that it is confined to those matters of procedure with which the Report of the Judges was concerned. Last year's Bill also contained a provision dealing with the officers of the 298 courts in respect, of superannuation and otherwise. I have confined the measure, which I ask your Lordships to read a second time this year, strictly to the subject of procedure in the Courts. I think it better that the other matter to which I have just referred should be dealt with by a separate measure.

§ LORD HALSBURY
I think your Lordships will have no doubt that this Bill ought to receive a Second Reading, and probably, ultimately, in some form should pass your Lordships' House. I was not here at the original discussion last year, and there is only one matter to which I should like to call my noble and learned Friend's attention. The swing of the pendulum seems to me to have gone now a little in the contrary direction to that in which it went formerly, and I think the power of limiting appeals is too great. My noble and learned Friend will know what I refer to. It is that part of the Bill which prohibits an appeal in all interlocutory matters except matters affecting the liberty of the subject and infants. It means that practically there shall be no appeal beyond the Court which has originally dealt with the matter and the Judges to whom the application is made unless they give their consent to an appeal. An interlocutory order will include an order of refusal of a new trial. I confess I view with some jealousy having for the first time an enactment of that kind limiting the appellate jurisdiction. It is true that with the leave of the Court such an appeal may be brought. But I see the Lord Chief Justice present, and I hope it is no treason to say that the ablest Judges are sometimes most positive they are right when they are held to have been wrong. It might, therefore, be inconvenient that there should be no appeal upon a pure question of law. My noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack has taught us that occasionally even the most eminent Judges are wrong; and, therefore, as I have said, I do not like the prohibition of appeals in those cases. Of course, that does not interfere with the Second Reading of the Bill, but I think the point will have to be considered in Committee.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord HERSCHELL)
No doubt that point will have to be considered. But I would call my noble and learned Friend's attention to this. It is not merely with the leave of the Judge that appeals shall be heard. I think, perhaps, such a provision would be open to objection, but leave to appeal can be obtained if the matter be brought before a Judge of the Court, of Appeal. In that case the matter is brought before a new mind, and if it. appears to the Judge that the decision in the Court below was right, the veto would be exorcised. The provision, therefore, is not quite so prohibitory as my noble and learned Friend teems to think.