Orders of the Day — ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE BILL [Lords].

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am ar 27 Gorffennaf 1923.

Danfonwch hysbysiad imi am ddadleuon fel hyn

Photo of Sir Kingsley Wood Sir Kingsley Wood , Woolwich West

My hon. and learned Friend is perfectly right in so saying. No doubt this Bill has been brought forward in view of the severe comments made by these Lord Justices. I doubt whether a Bill would have been brought forward but for that. He must not pretend for a moment—I am sure he will not do so—that this Bill by any means receives the assent of the Lord Justices! Very far from it. Because Lord Justice Bankes suggested that we should get back to our pre-War conditions. I ask the Solicitor-General, who is present: Why are we not going back? What is the reason? It is a strange thing that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney-General to-day has made a most remarkable offer to this House. He said, in the course of his speech: "If I cannot get up in Committee and prove that this Bill does not go further than the previous Act, then I am prepared to leave it to the free vote of the Committee." That is not what we want. What we want is to have a vote o his House as to whether we cannot get back the full position of the litigants of this country of trial by jury as it was before the War. I would remind the Solicitor-General of a statement of Lord Justice Bankes, who says: It is surely not the best way of determining whether a case shall be tried by a jury to leave to what is practically the uncontrolled discretion of a Judge a question upon which individual opinion may so widely differ, and to leave it without any indication of the matters which should be taken into consideration in arriving at a decision. Surely that is a wise and careful statement to make? What we really want is not to be given the points raised by the hon. and learned Member, but to be told how we are to put the people of this country, the citizens, in the same position as they were before the War. If not, we want to know why not? I do not know where this suggestion has come from at all. I think the best thing that can be said for trial by jury was said by Lord Justice Atkin in the same place: Trial by jury, except in a very limited number class of cases assigned to the Chancery Court, is an essential principle of our law. It has been the bulwark of liberty, the shield of the poor from the oppression of the rich and powerful. Anyone who knows the history of our law knows that many liberties of the subject were originally established and maintained by the verdicts of juries in civil cases. Many will think that at the present time the danger of attack by powerful private organisations, or by encroachments of the executive is not diminishing. Are encroachments of the Executive diminishing to-day? Does my hon. and learned Friend think that? I see no signs of it, either during the last Parliament or this. I venture to tell the hon. Member opposite, who, no doubt, has some acquaintance with the law, that it is essential, very essential, that the right of trial by jury should be restored in full for the very reason which Lord Justice Atkin has laid down. The Attorney-General relies on what is done in this House on the last occasion when, as I say, there was a most incomplete discussion. What does Lord Justice Atkin say about that? He says this: I am not prepared to speculate what the precise limitations in the minds of the Legislature were, and though I have serious misgivings whether we are correctly interpreting the real intention of Parliament, I am unable to put any meaning upon the words other than adopted by the other members of the Court. What, in fact, did happen? The Solicitor-General will correct me if I am wrong, but I think throughout the whole discussion on the last Act there was never a full and complete statement made in this House that trial by jury was at all to be restricted. If this House for a moment had realised that we were going to put on the Statute Book an Act that was going permanently to restrict the power and the right of trial by jury they would never have done it. I feel very strongly on this matter. I hesitate very much before I assent to the Second Beading of a Bill which contains this principle. The Solicitor-General may say that this is a Committee point. It is not a Committee point. We are here affirming a very important principle if we pass the Second Beading of this Bill. We are going to lay down permanently that we are not going back to our 1914 position. I regard that with some apprehension. Only the other day a County Court Judge's decision was the subject of review by the Divisional Court, and the Judge said: I find my hours are so crowded that I decline to give a certificate for a jury to sit with me. He said that he did not want a jury.