TRIAL BY JURY.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 July 1931, Page 6

TRIAL BY JURY.

From time to time complaints are made of miscarriage of justice, particularly in criminal cases, through the working of the jury system. Like everything of human origin the system has its weaknesses and is open to wrongful mam.pulation. But for 800 years it has been the foundation of British justice, and no other method of arriving at truth in regard to matters of fact which come before the courts has yet been devised. Belief in the jury system has recently received a remarkable demonstration in Great Britain, where a suggestion to remove an important .criminal trial from the ordinary tc a special court was declined by the three judges to whom it was made. The plea for a special court, and therefore a special jury, was that the charges involved intricate commercial transactions, which might prove beyond the powers of an ordinary jury to follow. The judges took the opposite view. They declared that experience had shown that an ordinary London jury was well able to decide upon matters of fact and of trade practice, and that justice in the case pending might safely be left to the ordinary Criminal Court. Such a pronouncement from one of the highest Courts in the Empire is eloquent testimony to the efficacy of the jury system. Like other national heritages it must bo cherished if abuses are. to be kept out, and the weaknesses buttressed wherever possible. That, of course, is one of the duties of British citizenship, and, though thei;c have been occasions in some Dominions for doubt, it is one that is generally recognised and acted upon throughout New Zealand. Judgment upon fact by his fel-low-countrymen arid upon law by judges whose impartiality and knowledge is beyond doubt is a right claimable by everv British citizen. It is one that should be guarded jealously and with a full appreciation of its value.