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 Mr Dennis Herbert Mr Dennis Herbert , Watford

: My point was, that there are a large number of other provisions beyond this question of trial by jury, and that these other questions do affect and concern very intimately a very large number of people who are concerned in litigation. As to that immense remainder of the Bill the Government have, of course, the support of the Law Society, and I believe of gentlemen connected with important technical bodies who are entitled to express an opinion upon matters of the sort. That being the case we are faced with an Amendment asking us to reject this Bill solely on the ground of Clause 2. I want to deal with that objection in a few sentences, and I desire to ask the House to consider carefully whether there is any reason for rejecting this Bill because of the opposition to Clause 2. The arguments which have been brought forward for rejection have been, if I may say without offence, most misleading, and not only so by hon. Members who might have the excuse of not knowing better, but even by no less a person than my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Spen Valley. He quoted the Hone case, and other cases, and spoke very eloquently, as he always does, upon the extreme value to the subject, and to the liberty of the subject, of the right of trial by jury. Is that the right hon. Gentleman's experience of trial by jury? I am a keen student of constitutional history and I am able to agree with everything he said in favour of the very great importance of preserving that right. Where he misled the House was that that argument does not apply to this Clause.

This Clause not only preserves but even restores to a great extent the right of trial by jury wherever the liberty of the subject is likely to be imperilled. What, after all, is this curtailment of the right of trial by jury which it is suggested is contained in this Clause? It is cutting down the right of the litigant to a trial by jury in cases where the liberty of the subject does not come in at all. It is cutting down the right in a great many cases of a very petty character where neither the freedom nor the reputation of the litigant is at issue at all, and in all those cases in which in the past the freedom and liberty of the subject has been built up on that old institution of trial by jury, every single one of them are secured and reinforced by the Clause as it stands. Let me say at once that this Clause does not restore the entire pre-War rights of the subject, but may I remind hon. Members, and particularly those who are connected with the law, that if they will cast their minds back to a year or two before the War they will find that at that time there was an enormous number of complaints in regard to little cases where the right to a trial by jury was really unnecessary, and led to a great waste of time and expense.