PROFESSIONAL JURORS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20005, 23 November 1927, Page 8

PROFESSIONAL JURORS

CHANGE NOT FAVOURED VIEWS OF LEADING BARRISTERS. [ Special “ Chronicle ” Service ] WELLINGTON, Nov. 22. The creation of professional jurymen in New Zealand is considered to offer no solution of the jury problem. This is the opinion of leaders of the bar. At the British Law Society’s conference at Sheffield, reports of which have just reached the Dominion, the formation of professional juries was advocated by Air J. W. Pickles who suggested that there should be juries of five men selected from persons who had had fifteen years’ experience in trade and that they should be paid £lOOO a year each and travel from court to court. The salary of five men would equal only that <of one judge of the High Court. It is- objected by a King’s Counsel and also by a member of the Council of the N.Z. Law Society that the professional jurymen would go to work with a fixed idea, with a feeling of officialism and that counsel would learn the leanings of each particular juryman. Juries were essentially a popular institution, they had,' not entered the constitution by accident, but were the outcome of experience. Jurymen ware quite capable of deciding facts and despite the occasional abuse to which the system was subjected it worked fairly well. A further and material objection was the fact that in New Zealand there were sometimes six Supreme Courts sitting at once and even supposing that a satisfactory selection could be made the cost would be great.