TRIAL BY JURY

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3172, 24 August 1917, Page 4

TRIAL BY JURY

"MERE' FETISH" IN CIVIL CASES. ' "The nations that speak tho English' ' language are the oidy nations in which! civil cases are tried by jury," said - Sir Francis Bell in tho Legislative Council yesterday, during the discussion of the Juries Act Amendment Bill. "Wo have maintained that system without the foundation that Magna Charta gives for trial by jurv in criminal cases. Trial by jury in civil oases is a mere fetish. It has nothing to do with the maintenance of liberty or tho maintenance of right, and jurors have always resented it. They are prepared to servo in criminal case? «.nd try the issue between the State audi the prisoner at tho Bar; but they resent being called upon to act i.s arbitrators between persons whoso .iffairs do not concern them and to decide upon matters that they know themselves incompetent to determine. ' "It is a strange habit of the Englishspeaking race to insist upon.issues between individuals being determined by a tribunal which is in its essentials likely to bo prejudiced. What chanco has the unpopular man when a civil case in which ho is concerned is determined by his neighbours? What chanco has the wretched defendant in a case of breach of promise of marriage?" Sir{ Francis Bell added that the weaknesses of the jury system os applied to civil cases were recognised videly, and it constantly happened that parties whose chances might be regarded as fairly equal chose by agreement to abandon the jury and take thoir dispute to a Judge.Why should'an ordinary'citizen, bo required to perform without payment a service that could be very much better rendered by a servant of tho State? Trial by jury in criminal cases was; quite another matter. There +ho right of the individual to be tried by a jury of his peers was a bulwark of liberty.