§ LORD AUCKLANDMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ [The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the procedure for securing that the names of suitable candidates for appointment as magistrates are brought to the attention of the Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committees on Justices of the Peace.]
983§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD DILHORNE)My Lords, any person or organisation may recommend a candidate for appointment as a justice of the peace. The candidate's name and particulars should be sent to the secretary of the local advisory committee. There is a separate advisory committee for justices of the peace in each area having a separate Commission; that is to say in each administrative county and in certain cities and boroughs.
In the counties, the secretary of the committee is usually the Clerk of the Peace, and recommendations should therefore be addressed to him. In the boroughs, I have asked the advisory committees to arrange for the secretaries' names and addresses to be published each year in the municipal Year Books. I appreciate that it may not always be convenient for members of the public to procure copies of the Year Book and I am therefore asking the town clerk of every borough with a separate Commission of the Peace to be good enough to arrange for letters nominating persons for appointment to the bench to be transmitted to the advisory committee. If anyone does not know or cannot find out who is the secretary to the advisory committee of a borough, I am confident that if he writes to the town clerk, the latter will be prepared to forward the recommendation to the right quarter.
§ LORD AIREDALEMy Lords, does not the reply the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has given throw into stark relief the anomaly of having another class of magistrate, who are appointed whether they are suitable or not, whether they are willing or not, and whether or not they are willing to undergo the course of training that other magistrates will now have to undergo, and who, seeing that they serve for only a year, are going to have precious little opportunity for learning their duties from experience? I refer to mayors of boroughs and chairmen of other local authorities.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORMy Lords, I cannot agree that the procedure that I have outlined for bringing the names of persons suitable for appointment to the Commission throws anything in relation to ex officio magistrates into stark relief.
LORD SALTOUNMy Lords, may I ask the noble and learned Lord whether the new system does not entail a certain danger, in that the people who are prepared to undergo these courses of instructions are more likely to be those to whom the status of magistrate is more important than it is to other people? I will ask another question to explain what I mean. I will ask the noble and learned Lord whether the Leader of the House has given him this information about an old lifeboat coxwain friend of mine, who, when his father sent him into the Navy, gave him this instruction, "My boy, remember this: you are sent into the Navy to be of more use to the Navy than the Navy is to you." It seems to me that that qualification is one that one would like to have in magistrates. Is not the new system liable to impair that principle?
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORMy Lords, I cannot see that the Question put to me, which I have answered, has anything to do with the new system of training for magistrates. But if the question asked by the noble Lord had anything to do with the Question put to me, I would say that I am sure that those who wish to undertake the duties of a magistrate will be quite ready to take advantage of the facilities for instruction which will shortly be available to them.
§ VISCOUNT LONGMy Lords, may I ask the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack whether it is not a fact that for some years we have had these courses in our counties and that they have been of great success? Further, may I ask the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor: have not the advisory committees done their job extremely well in regard to those magistrates they have recommended?
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORMy Lords, if the noble Viscount had perhaps cast an eye over a speech I had occasion to make to the magistrates at Reading, he would have realised that I recognise that in certain areas of the country the facilities for instruction are extremely good, though I pointed out that the same could not be said over the whole of the country. The proposals I put forward will, I hope, go a long way to remedy that. With regard to the second point, I am of course grateful 985 for the most valuable assistance that advisory committees give to me throughout the country.
§ LORD TAYLORMy Lords, arising out of the Question put to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, may I ask him whether there is any machinery for interviewing candidates when they have been recommended by members of the public but are not necessarily known to the advisory committee?
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORMy Lords, of course if the name is put before the advisory committee, the advisory committee make full inquiries. In the light of past experience, I am most reluctant that the identity of members of the advisory committee should be disclosed or should become known. There was a time when their names were known, but it led to so much lobbying and so much pressure that that practice has been abandoned. Therefore, I am most reluctant that any steps should be taken which would reveal who are the members of an advisory committee in a particular area.