TRIAL BY JURY.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 14 August 1924, Page 5

TRIAL BY JURY.

MAJORITY VERDICTS. BILL FAILS ON SECOND READING. (BY TELEGRAPH —PREBS ASSOCIATION.) WELLINGTON, Aiig. 13. in the House to-night the Hon. W. Downie Stewart moved the second reading of the Juries Amendment Bill, which was introduced into the Legislative Council by the Hon. John McGregor and passed by that chamber. The Minister said he was introducing the Bill in his capacity as a private member, and the Bill was not a Government measure. The Minister explained that the Bill consisted of three clauses, the second which did away with unanimity on the part of juries and provided that a five-sixths majority could lie accepted in criminal cases, but not in capital cases. The third clause provided that a trial may proceed notwithstanding that the jury had been reduced in number owing to death or illness. In presenting these proposls to the House the Minister quoted the opinions of well-known judges who favoured the change, and he generally followed the line of argument employed by the mover in the Legislative Council. He asked the House to pass the second reading. He would endeavour to introduce into it clauses which would equalise the right of the Crown and the defence to challenge jurors and to enable women to sit on juries. The leader of the Opposition (Milk M. Wilford) said he took exactly the opposite view of - the matter - to that taken by judges who sat on the Bench, and he believed his view was that held by most of the leading barristers in the Dominion. The present method of challenge was most unfair, but that was no reason why a Bill such as this could he- passed. Unanimity was the only safeguard. He was proud of our jury'system. He believed our jurymen were not bribed, but were honest men, and he had never known an innocent person to be convicted, and that was the crux of the whole position. Even with unanimity juries might make mistakes, as in the case of Adolph Beck, but no eminent authority in Britain would depart from the principle of unanimity. This Bill originated in the fact that men had been acquitted of charges under the Gaming Act, which only went to prove that we could not legislate ahead of public opinion. Prisoners had sufficient handicap against the Crown as matters stood, and it would be unfair to deprive them of this one chance of a unanimous jury. Mr D. G. Sullivan (Avon), speaking as a layman, opposed the Bill, which was an attack on the jury system. Mr W. D. Lysnar (Gisborne) said a -majority verdict was accented in civil cases, hut there the personal liberty of the subject was not at stake, which made all the difference. He would oppose the Bill.

The Hon. J. A. Hanan (Invercargill) said the opposition to the Bill was due to conservatism, which regarded the jury system as beyond improvement. He would support the Bill. The leader of the Labour Partv (Mr H. 'E. Holland) opposed the Bill’. He strongly attacked the unlimited right of challenge enjoyed by the Crown, contending that by that means the Grown had the right to pack juries, which led to injustice. * ’ The debate was continued bv several members, and after the Minister had replied a division was called for, when the second reading was rejected by 33 votes to 29.