I have not any figures with regard to challenges. One could put it roughly by saying that probably not one woman served for every five hundred men. That is the result under the 1924 Act and, taking that as the result, my point of view is simply this, that for that result it is not reasonable, it is not good business to go to all the administrative expense that is necessary to arrive at even that result, that you have to go as your first step, through the process of putting all women on the jury list, sending them circulars, asking them whether they wish to serve or not, and then attempting to provide separate accommodation in the courts for women jurors. I do not think that there is standing ground between the position of the 1919 Act and the position that we are proposing to take up in this Bill of ours of 1927. Certainly it would be absurd, for a result of fifty women jurors in a year, to continue to go to the trouble and expense necessary to arrive at that result. The proposal in the Bill is to restrict liability for jury service to men. On that point I would like to make it understood that the proposal is not put forward in the point of view that women are incapable of rendering reasonably good service on juries. Women who have served on juries have rendered reasonably good service, probably as good service as men who have served in that capacity. But the proposal is put forward in recognition of the fact that the great bulk of the women of the country are unwilling, most reluctant, to serve on juries, and that it is not necessary to compel them. The machine will work without compelling the woman juror to come forward. We can, without undue hardship on the eligible male population, keep the courts served with juries. I know that self-appointed spokeswomen have taken the stand that this is a slight on their sex and they purport to speak for, presumably, the adult feminine population of the State. They claim that under the proposal of this Bill the women of the State are wronged by being ruled out from some of the services of citizenship. It seems to me that that is almost as if a vegetarian, speaking on behalf of the human race, or the human race within the area of jurisdiction of his particular State, were to demand that legislation should be passed prohibiting the use of meat.
People are entitled to their individual views, and I am not quarrelling at all with the point of view of individual women who yearn for jury service, but I am denying her right to speak or write as if she were appointed to express the views of her sex in the State when we have the best of reason for knowing that those are not the views of the vast majority of the women in the State. Under the Act of 1924 less than 10 per cent. of the total number of women eligible for jury service remained on the register under the optional provision, and of that 10 per cent., 40 or 50 served in a year. They were challenged from time to time as they appeared by one side or the other in litigation. Certainly I would not suggest to the Dáil, or to the Minister for Finance, that the 1924 provision should be continued, and I am faced therefore with putting forward either a reversion to the 1919 Act or the proposal that is embodied in this Bill. As between those I do not hesitate. It is not necessary to compel women to perform this service which is an unpleasant service even for men.
There is an aspect of the matter which must be touched upon. I had to consider lately the question of the services of stenographers in the courts, and the question arose would we have women stenographers in the Central Criminal Court and in the Circuit Courts throughout the country. On that point I took the decision that women stenographers would be unsuitable, for a reason that many Deputies will appreciate at once. Extremely unpleasant cases come before the courts, cases of indecent assault, of rape, and, occasionally, of sodomy, and so on, and I would not take the administrative decision of subjecting women officials to a task of taking down verbatim evidence given in cases of that kind. That consideration applies equally in the matter of juries. I do not want to overstress it, but it is a fact that cases come before the courts not infrequently which one would not like to discuss with the feminine members of one's own family. If you stand for the 1919 provision, compulsory jury service for all women, you have got to contemplate women members of your own family, or women members of a friend's family, being compelled to serve on juries when cases of that kind arise. The statute which was passed in 1919 by the British Parliament was passed because of things that were said and written and urged in Great Britain. Whatever pressure there was for that statute was not shared to any degree at all by the electorate of this country at the time, but an Act was passed, and because we were at that time part and parcel of the political system of Great Britain it applied here.
In 1924 we retreated from it to the position of optional jury service for women. Now I am suggesting to the Dáil that we should cut clear there from the rather anomalous position we are in under the Act of 1924. That is the first step in changing the existing law which I wish to draw the attention of Deputies to.
The second change of any importance is a proposal to abolish special juries. As long as special juries remain it would be necessary to keep in each county a separate book of special jurors, and the rate collectors, county registrars, and all the other officials concerned in the preparation of lists of jurors will be at the trouble of distinguishing in the lists of registrars and jurors book between special jurors and common jurors. It would be further necessary for the Minister for Justice to consider as regards each particular jury district what would be the proper rating qualification for special jurors. Even in some counties, and I think fairly many, common jurors have the grievance that the special jurors have very little to do, and, as such, are exempt from service as common jurors, with the result that the burden on the common jurors is made more severe than it ought to be. There is the general question whether the system of keeping a separate list of special jurors is not open to the objection that it is a survival of class legislation. Underlying it there seems to be a suggestion that only gentlemen, or, at any rate, persons living in houses with a high valuation, are competent to try certain classes of cases, and that a man who is good enough to decide whether or not a prisoner is to be hanged by the neck until he is dead is not good enough to decide the merits of a slander action between, let us say, two strong farmers. That, I think, is the technical expression.
There is also the point that a person with a high valuation is not necessarily the better juror. It is not quite an established rule that a man's intelligence and honesty is directly proportionate to the poor law valuation of his house. That seems to me to be the suggestion underlying this system of special jurors. I do not think any strong feeling exists in favour of the retention of special jurors. So far as we have been able to gather, there is a fair degree of unanimity in well-informed circles that, in Dublin at least, the common juror is as intelligent and as impartial as any special juror could possibly be.
The third point deals with the question of challenges. There is a proposal to reduce the number of challenges without cause. The present position is that the defendant is entitled to challenge 20 jurors without showing cause in cases of felony. In cases of misdemeanour he is entitled to challenge six. Further in felony cases, if two or more persons are indicted for the same felony by one indictment, each is entitled to the full 20 challenges without showing cause, unless they expressly consent to join in their challenges. That is to say, that where three persons are being tried together for armed robbery, they can order 60 jurors to stand aside without showing cause. In cases of misdemeanour, however, where prisoners are being tried together, their right of peremptory challenge is limited under Section 10 of the Act of 1876 — the Procedure Act — to six jurors in all. They are not entitled to sever their challenges.
In civil cases the present law as regards peremptory challenge is stated in Section 10 of the Act of 1876: "In all civil trials in the superior courts the plaintiff or plaintiffs on the one hand, and the defendant or defendants on the other hand, respectively, shall be entitled to challenge, without cause assigned, in all six jurors, and, in the inferior courts, in all three jurors." Jurors may be challenged for cause shown without limit of number in criminal and civil trials. That is, no man need have his case tried by any juror to whom he can show any reasonable objection, and it cannot be doubted that the court will not put any difficulty in the way of such challenge. If there is reasonable objection, the court will allow the challenge.