JURIES Bill. [H.L.] (Hansard, 28 March 1922)

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
With great respect to the experience and knowledge of the noble and learned Lord on this subject, I do not think he has really established his case against the high authority of the Committee which was entrusted by Parliament with the task of inquiring into these and cognate matters. The practice of striking a jury in what is known as the "old style" has been very occasional. It is an extremely cumbrous, tiresome, and obsolete performance, involving both officials and everyone concerned in all kinds of inconvenience. I have never known anyone in the world say a good word for it until the noble and learned Lord singled it out for his approval. I do not gather—he will tell me if I am wrong—that he has ever known, in his long experience as a Judge for eighteen years in the High Court, more than one instance in which it was resorted to.

§ LORD PHILLIMORE
The noble and learned Lord was occupied at the moment I was speaking. I stated that two members of the Departmental Committee mentioned existing cases where it was pending at that moment; that a Member of Parliament complained of the action in his own case recently, and that Mr. Justice Channell stated that he had given such orders as a Judge, though he thought that they had been rather dying out. I also stated that I tried a case at Gloucester in which it was done, and that I had had one case in my own experience at the Bar.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
Apparently the noble and learned Lord knows of one case as a Judge and one in his experience at the Bar. There is another case in which a Member of Parliament is concerned; but Members of Parliament are always complaining about something. And in Mr. Justice Channell's experience there is a single case only. It comes to this: if you take the experience in such matters of Lord Phillimore, Mr. Justice Channell and the Member of Parliament who complained, in all that experience—Mr. Justice Channell is, I believe, over 80, though the noble and learned Lord is younger—there are only four of these cases. Against this we have the very authoritative Report of the recent Committee presided over by Lord Mersey who has unique experience as a Judge and extraordinary common sense in all these matters.
This is what the majority of Lord 924 Mersey's Committee said with regard to striking the jury in the "old style." We think that the provision in the Juries Act, 1870, which allows the Court to make an order for the striking of a jury in what is known as the old style, should be repealed. It is not only that we favour the requirement of one fixed and uniform system for the selection of all juries, but we also regard it as extremely undesirable to give any opening for the sense of injury which an unsuccessful litigant is pretty sure to feel, when the jury that has decided against him has been struck in the 'old style.' This procedure may be used by litigants with the sole intention of securing a prejudiced jury, and, so far as our evidence goes, we are disposed to believe that in practice it is seldom likely to be adopted for any other reason. I do not know that I should have gone quite so far as the Committee went, but there is a basis in my judgment for their conclusion that the procedure is little likely to be adopted for any other reason than that of securing a prejudiced jury. I really cannot think that your Lordships will be desirous, in the face of such a Report from a Committee of the authority of that which is under discussion, to preserve a practice which I and many others are satisfied plays no useful part in the modern legal world, and I hope the noble and learned Lord will not think it necessary to press the Amendment.