HL Deb 28 May 1952 vol 176 cc1538-45

2.54 p.m.

EARL JOWITT had given notice of his intention to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have now had an opportunity of considering the case of Mrs. Iwi, and whether they have any statement to make. The noble and learned Earl said: My Lords, I rise to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper. In some sense we are descending from great affairs, from the general to the particular, but I think that even the particular has its importance. Amongst the other duties which the Lord Chancellor has to perform are the duties of appointing, and occasionally of removing, magistrates. So far as appointing is concerned, of course, he acts upon the advice of his advisory committees. So far as removal is concerned, fortunately that is seldom necessary, and if it is it is nearly always because a magistrate is convicted of some crime involving some moral obliquity or, if not, a case where the magistrate has allowed his political views to influence and sway his judicial judgment. Those cases, too, are happily rare. There was one the other day, in which the noble Viscount the Chancellor of the Duchy was concerned and in which, if I may say so without disrespect, he obviously took the right line.

Those cases, as I say, are rare. But the case which I am now raising with your Lordships is a very difficult one and is one which gave me great anxiety when I was Lord Chancellor, because it did not fall under either of those heads. I am very anxious to have it discussed and to find out whether, in fact, I took the right line. I certainly took it only after great consideration and great anxiety. The matter of Mrs. Iwi was first brought to my attention on November 4, 1949. I had known Mr. Iwi. He had been a client of mine in my old days at the Bar. I had not the pleasure of knowing Mrs. Iwi. She had recently been appointed a magistrate for the Gore Division of Middlesex. Lest it be thought that I am biased, I should add that, so far as I know, I did not know any other magistrates who sat on the Gore Division. The circumstances in which the matter was brought to my attention by my officers were these. The quarrels which had been going on between Mrs. Iwi, on the one hand, and the other justices of the Gore Division on the other, had reached such a pitch that there was a real danger that the satisfactory administration of justice might be interfered with. The satisfactory administration of justice is the first consideration to which everything else must give way.

As to the merits of those disputes, I desire to say nothing. There were, of course, charges and there were counter charges. Mrs. Iwi alleged that there had been some irregularities in the proceedings of the magistrates—some of them comparatively venial, some of them more serious—but in none of them was there any reason whatever to suppose that there was any element of bad faith. The other magistrates, on their part, alleged that Mrs. Iwi was an impossible colleague and that they were quite unable to work with her. What concerned me was not her complaints (for I realise that any justice is fully entitled to bring to the knowledge of the Lord Chancellor any irregularities so long as they are honestly brought, which he or she thinks have been committed, and, indeed, they should be so brought) but that the dissension had reached such a point that it appeared that the satisfactory administration of justice in that Division was placed in jeopardy. For that reason, and that reason alone, I acted as I did.

When the matter was brought to my notice I suggested that we should have a friendly interview to try to reach a satisfactory conclusion. And on November 19, 1949, I arranged for Mrs. Iwi—I suggested that she should bring her husband with her—to come and see me. I, of course, was accompanied by two of my officers. We had a long interview which lasted for an hour. As a result of that interview, I formed the conclusion that much the best thing to do was that Mrs. Iwi should abstain from sitting for a year. Time is a great healer, and I hoped that after the year the quarrels would be satisfactorily adjusted. I told her, quite frankly, that if she did not agree to this course I should have to consider the question of removing her from the Bench, since the satisfactory administration of justice must be my guiding principle and my first consideration. I told her not to give a "snap" answer, but to go home and discuss it with her husband and "sleep on it." The following day, November 20, she wrote me a letter undertaking not to adjudicate for one year. Of course she remained a magistrate, and I made it quite plain that she could sign warrants and all the rest of it.

Instead of accepting that decision, unfortunately, Mrs. Iwi proceeded to agitate very much about it, and wrote a large number of letters. I strongly suspect that your Lordships in all quarters of the House have been the recipients of some of those letters. Finally, I was minded to write her this letter, and I am going to trouble your Lordships by reading it. It was originally intended to be a private letter—and it is so marked—but she asked if she might use it for public discussion and I agreed. The letter is dated August 12, 1950, which is some nine months after she had given me the undertaking and about three months before she was entitled to sit again. The letter reads: My dear Mrs. Iwi, Mr. Skyrme, who is away on a short holiday, has shown me your letter to him of the 10th August. You once asked if you might write to me with complete candour. I am claiming the like privilege in writing this letter, which I should like you to regard as private to yourself, with equal candour. When we met last November it had become obvious to me that the situation amongst the Gore Justices was reaching boiling point, and had things gone on as they were then going I felt confident that the pot would boil over. I came to the conclusion then that you were overwrought, deeply disturbed by what had taken place, and felt distrust alike in the integrity and capacity of your fellow Justices. On the other hand, I realised that they in their turn felt a lack of confidence in your comradeship and willingness to work as a member of the team. Life has taught me that when these situations develop there is generally some element of fault on both sides; even though it may originate from nothing worse than a lack of tact or failure to give due consideration to the other fellow's point of view. It was under these circumstances that I decided to ask for your undertaking not to sit as a Magistrate for a year. I have not the slightest intention of relieving you from this undertaking, and I hoped that by now you would have come to realise this. I am bound to tell you, writing with that candour which I have claimed, that I am deeply sorry to observe the way in which you have fought against my decision instead of accepting it with quiet dignity. It was a decision to which I came at least as much in your own interest as in the interests of anyone else. Time is a great healer; and I thought that after a rest for a year during which all these troubles would be forgotten, you would come back to your duties refreshed and reinvigorated, able and willing to make a useful contribution to the work of the Justices. I have now come to feel that instead of taking this attitude you have never put these things out of your mind, have continually brooded upon them and have not acquired that sense of detachment nor been fortified by the rest for which I had hoped. I do beg of you even now to drop all this agitation and to resolve when the due time comes to play your part as a member of the team. I infer from your letter that you still think that the Gore Magistrates are not doing their best to administer justice. I believe this suspicion to be quite ill-founded. I have no doubt that they sometimes make mistakes and sometimes say foolish things, but even highly trained lawyers have been known to fall short of the ideal in both these respects. For the rest, I believe that they are doing their best according to their lights to administer justice fairly and impartially, and I have no doubt that it may still be possible for you to make a useful contribution. I do not ask for an answer to this letter, indeed I ask you not to answer it. I would like to have no further correspondence, and I would like you during your holiday and for the next two or three months to put the whole matter completely out of your mind.

Yours sincerely,

JOWITT."

I think your Lordships will agree that this was a real effort to make things easier for her but I received from Mr. Iwi, a four-page letter answering mine; and I was at last driven to say I could not enter into any further correspondence. On November 20, 1950, the twelve months being up, Mrs. Iwi wrote a letter to her fellow justices in which she demanded assurances before coming back that she would be treated on a basis of complete equality. Naturally, they were incensed by that because they said they always had treated her on a basis of complete equality. Accordingly, they met together on December 5, 1950, and they passed a resolution by 29 to 2 expressing the view that they would prefer not to have to sit with her again. On May 11, 1951, she resigned; and at the end of October, 1951, I ceased to be Lord Chancellor.

After I ceased to be Lord Chancellor—not before that—there was a letter in The Times. I make no complaint that there was such a letter and indeed, if the facts had been told to me as they were told to the noble Lords who signed the letter, I should probably have "fallen for" them myself. The letter was signed by two noble Lords in this House—Lord Tedder and Lord Horder—and by various dignitaries of the Church and it said: A justice who makes a complaint in good faith should not be subjected to disciplinary action or the threat of such action."— a principle with which I cordially agree. The letter went on to say: We are shocked by the proposition that the Lord Chancellor's exercise of his power of removal in a particular case was not suitable for public discussion. In our opinion it is so contrary to the spirit of the Constitution as to demand searching examination. I will deal with that point presently. For the moment I will say merely that I feel that this is not a subject for discussion at a meeting of magistrates: I believe that the proper forum is this House or the other place. Then, of course, there arises the question as to whether the power of removal should be exercised by the Lord Chancellor or by some kind of tribunal on appeal from the Lord Chancellor. As to the first statement in the letter—that a justice who makes a complaint should not be subjected to disciplinary action—I entirely agree. But it is wholly untrue to say that that was the reason which induced me to ask Mrs. Iwi to undertake not to sit for twelve months. The noble Lords who signed the letter did not know those facts, but anybody who sees this correspondence must realise that the reason I acted as I did, rightly or wrongly, was because of the quarrelling that was taking place on the bench, to which an end had to be put.

Secondly, it was alleged that I had suggested that the case was not suitable for public discussion. It was true that the letter may have been clumsily phrased by my Department, but it was apropos of the proposal that a discussion of my conduct should take place before the Magistrates Association. I have a great regard for the Magistrates Association—they have done some useful work. But I am sure they do not claim to be any substitute for this House. It is a peculiar merit of our Constitution that every Minister is a member of either one House or the other, and can and should answer in the appropriate House for his conduct. That is the proper place to do it. I should think it unseemly for the Lord Chancellor to enter into correspondence in the columns of the Press, explaining his conduct. It would be undesirable for him to explain his conduct in that way. He should explain his conduct to this House: this is the proper forum.

That letter having been written, I confess I tried to get one or other of the noble Lords to follow it up, either by asking to see the correspondence—and I am quite sure the Lord Chancellor would have allowed them to see it—or by asking a Question in this House. I wanted to get one of those noble Lords to ask this Question rather than myself, lest the ignorant and suspicious might have thought, if I received a satisfactory answer, that it was a sort of whitewashing. I thought it was better for Mrs. Iwi to have the Question asked, to remove the possibility of such an impression. I did tell them that I was going to refer to them in this connection, and I asked them to be here. I gave them notice of this occasion, so that if there are any supplementary questions they thought ought to be put they could be considered. I think I have fairly represented Mrs. Iwi's case. My desire is to be absolutely fair.

On the point whether these matters should continue to be dealt with by the Lord Chancellor, or whether there should be some tribunal of appeal from the Lord Chancellor, I strongly favour these questions remaining under the jurisdiction of the Lord Chancellor, and for this reason. The Lord Chancellor is a member of this House. His conduct can be criticised and controlled by this House. I believe that that is far better than going to a committee, however eminent, who are not responsible to this House for the course they take. I am sorry to have troubled your Lordships at some length with this matter, but I thought that, far from being a mere private matter, it became one of some public importance when the statement was made in the letter to The Times that the fact that a justice made a complaint in perfect good faith was a ground for subjecting him or her to disciplinary action. I felt it was most desirable that that statement should be explained at the earliest possible time. For that reason I have bothered your Lordships with it on this day. That being so, I beg to ask the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

3.11 p.m.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD SIMONDS)

My Lords, the Question which is on the Order Paper is this: To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have now had an opportunity of considering the case of Mrs. Iwi, and whether they have any statement to make. I personally have had an ample opportunity of considering the case of Mrs. Iwi, and I have taken full advantage of that opportunity. I think there is no subject since I assumed office at the end of October which has occupied so much of my time as this has. I have fully considered the case of Mrs. Iwi who, as the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, has said, gave an undertaking to him, as Lord Chancellor, on November 20, 1949, that she would not sit as a justice of the peace for twelve months, the period expiring in November, 1950, and who on May 11, 1951, resigned from the commission. I am satisfied that no action on my part is necessary or desirable, whether by way of directing an inquiry or otherwise. In my opinion, the noble and learned Earl took the steps best calculated to help the proper administration of justice in the Gore Division of Middlesex. Further, I will say this: that the noble and learned Earl at the same time treated Mrs. Iwi with all possible consideration and kindness.