EVIDENCE IN CRIMINAL CASES BILL. (Hansard, 20 February 1896)

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord HALSBURY)

, in moving the Second Reading of this Bill, observed that everything he had to say on the subject of this Measure he must have said already at least five times in previous Sessions. The Bill had been repeatedly before their Lordships, and he trusted that at last the effort to bring the law of evidence into a reasonable condition might be successful. The question with which the Bill dealt was looked upon in some quarters rather as a theoretical question, but he thought that those who were obstructing the proposed reform, either actively or passively, ought to remember that this was a matter which affected the happiness of a great number of people from day to day. Under the existing law opportunities of great injustice arose from time to time in our criminal Courts. Within the last month he had received a letter from a most experienced Judge, who said that he believed the state of the law had led to injustice in a case tried before him. There had been a trial in which both of the parties could be and had been heard, and a certain result followed. One of the parties then 682 indicted the other for perjury, and the latter in this case was unable to give evidence under the present anomalous state of the law. Originally the law was logical enough, for nobody that had any interest in a case was permitted to be examined. However, it was felt after a time that it was impossible to allow such a procedure to continue. He remembered the time when agreements for arbitration always contained a provision that the parties should be capable of being examined. But now, in all civil Courts, including the Divorce Court, the parties could give evidence. In criminal cases, however, this was not the case as far as the accused was concerned unless he was charged under a Statute which specially made his evidence admissible. There were some 25 or 30 such Statutes, and so the distinction between civil and criminal procedure in respect of evidence was not universally observed. In this country prosecutions could be conducted voluntarily by anybody in the name of the Queen, and the prosecutor could select a particular form of accusation, and upon the selection made would depend the question whether the person interested could be examined as a witness. He was afraid that his proposed amendment of the law was one of those things which starved under universal praise. Everyone admitted that the present anomalous position of the law was monstrous, and yet every year the anomaly was increased, because, when a new offence was created by statute, it was now invariably provided that the person charged should be capable of being examined on his own behalf. The urgently-needed change which the Bill would effect had been postponed from Session to Session. Their Lordships had always passed the Bill without difficulty; but it had failed to pass through the other House in consequence, he supposed, of the pressure of other business. This alteration of the law had been warmly advocated as many as 18 years ago by the late Mr. Russell Gurney, a Judge of vast experience and ability, whose opinions were regarded with universal respect. He might remind their Lordships that, not very long ago, a man who was convicted on a capital charge challenged the state of the law, and declared that he could have proved his innocence if he had been 683 permitted to give evidence on his own behalf. On more than one occasion the susceptibilities of those who did not wish this change in the law to extend to Ireland had been consulted, and Ireland accordingly had been excluded from the operation of the Measure. But, whether Ireland was included or excluded, the fate of the Bill had heretofore been the same, and the conclusion he had come to was that he must act according to his own judgment as to which was right in the matter. He feared that the inclusion of Ireland would still be unacceptable to some, and that its exclusion would be equally unacceptable to others. He concluded by moving that the Bill be read a Second time.

§ LORD HERSCHELL

said this matter had reached a point at which argument was useless. A measure similar to this was first carried through their lordships' House in 1886, and since that date his noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack and himself had alternately introduced a Bill of this kind in successive Sessions. The necessity for the Amendment which the Bill proposed to effect had been increased by the changes which had already been made in the law by various statutes. He believed that in the case of every new offence created by statute in the last ten years Parliament had thought right to empower the accused to give evidence. There could be no better proof of the growing conviction that what his noble and learned Friend proposed in this Bill was the right course to take. The present divergence in procedure often rendered the administration of the law very difficult. It depended sometimes upon the particular mode in which an indictment was framed whether the person accused could or could not give evidence, and there had been cases in which it was possible for the accused to give evidence upon one charge in an indictment and not upon another, although the two charges were closely connected, and might be described as but different ways of stating the same offence. Such a condition of the law was intolerable. He felt certain the proposed change would often prevent injustice.