RIGHT OF REVISION.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 54, 9 April 1914, Page 10

RIGHT OF REVISION.

POLICE AND JURIES. The little disagreement reported in this issue between the Auckland Magistrate, Mr C. C. Kettle, and the SubInspector of Police, regarding the right of the detective' branch to expurgate the jury list, draws attention to a dubious custom. Certainly in this instance the officers of the detective branch seem to have exceeded their duty in revising the list without the sanction of the Magistrate. The law provides that the jury list for any centre shall be compiled by police officers from the names of residents within a certain radius, and they are authorised to omit from the list the names of any persons who are obviously unfitted for jury service or are otherwise exempt. The disqualifications, however, are detailed, and that a person is of suspicious character, or belongs to a family in which there are criminals, is not one of the disqualifications mentioned.. Yet, in deciding that such a person is not eligible, the police are not far wrong, even though they are not keeping strictly within the law in so deciding, and they are saving themselves some trouble and the Courts from a waste of time. For, even if dubious characters were called for jury service the police have the right to "challenge" them when they are called on to conlpose a jury, and they\ would be- rejected in that way. But to leave this discrimination entirely in the hands of the police might possibly lead to abuse of the privilege, so the law requires that all revisions of jury lists shall be made before a bench of justices or a magistrate, and reason shown for any omissions or claims for exemption. Mr Kettle's quarrel is that the detective .officers had expurgated the list before it came before him. That the practice is, eighteen years old is no justification for it, and the supervision of justices or a magistrate is necessary merely because there is a possibility of police officers deleting the names of certain persons because they had refused to convict in cases brought by the police. Undoubtedly the detective office is best qualified to decide whether a person's character or associations should make him unfit for jury service, but even if magistrate or justices dis-* agree-on this eligibility or otherwise, the police have still the right and the safeguard of the "challenge." It is not desirable that the detectives should form anything like a preliminary tribunal of inquisition 'or construct an "index expurgatorio."