Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 15 Feb 1927

Vol. 18 No. 5

ORDERS OF THE DAY. - JURIES BILL, 1927—SECOND STAGE.

Mr. O'HIGGINS

The major portion of this long and somewhat technical Bill is, in fact, merely a codification of the existing law with the necessary adaptations consequential on the recent changes in our judicial system. If Deputies will turn to the Second Schedule of the Bill they will see there are no less than seventeen statutes, beginning with one passed in 1800 and ending with one passed last year, repealed by this Bill. In so far as the Bill consists merely of a codification of the statutes hitherto existing, the only question that arises is whether the draftsman has succeeded in incorporating in this present Bill, with the necessary verbal alterations, the substance of these existing statutes.

We are satisfied after careful examination that that, in fact, has been attained, and, of course, administratively it is a considerable advantage to have simplicity attained by codification of that kind. I would not propose to delay the Dáil with any elaborate statement on this Bill in so far as it achieves merely codification of the existing law, but I would propose to direct the attention of Deputies to any changes in the substance of the existing law which this Bill purports to affect. These substantial changes in the existing law are not numerous. I will deal with them as we go along. The first change, and one to which some publicity has been given in the Press, is the proposal to exempt women altogether from jury service as they were exempted until 1919 when the British Parliament made them liable equally with men. Deputies will, perhaps, remember the position created by our own Act of 1924, which was a departure from the position under the Act of 1919. Under the Act passed in 1924 the Oireachtas decided that women, who for any reason were unwilling and reluctant to serve as jurors, could be dispensed on application, in fact should be dispensed automatically on application, from jury service, and we have found in practice that very few women wish to serve on juries. We have found also that the few who do are very frequently challenged by one party or the other in litigation. I find that, taking the period of twelve months, out of thousands of jurors who served in the State less than fifty, in fact about forty, are women. Taking the year 1925, I think that the number of women who served as jurors was exactly about forty.

Mr. JOHNSON

Does the Minister know how many were challenged?

Mr. O'HIGGINS

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.

Mr. JOHNSON

In cases where there were a large number of challenges allowed, had the Act special reference to Ireland?

Mr. O'HIGGINS

It has not special reference to Ireland, but it is the existing law for cause shown——

Mr. JOHNSON

It is the law of the United Kingdom?

Mr. O'HIGGINS

I think so. It is not proposed to alter the law in any way in so far as it bears on the question of challenges for cause shown. The reduction is only a reduction in the number of peremptory challenges without cause shown. When we are discussing the proposed reduction in the number of peremptory challenges, it must be borne in mind that what is limited is the right of parties to challenge jurors against whom they can show no reasonable objection whatever.

In point of fact, the exercise of this present right of peremptory challenge in criminal cases has resulted in something approaching a scandal. The prisoner first objects to any juror to whom he can show any reasonable objection. That he is entitled to, and will remain entitled to it. It is right that he should do that. But he then proceeds to challenge persons against whom he has no valid objection, except that he suspects them, from appearance or reputation, to be persons who will respect their oaths as jurors by convicting the prisoner if the evidence satisfies them that the prisoner is guilty. If several persons are being tried together, the jury which is finally sworn is composed of those members of the panel whose appearance or reputation is considered by the prisoners to be least promising from the point of view of the impartial administration of justice.

There is a practical administrative consideration that perhaps should be mentioned, and that is that in selecting a panel for any sitting of a court, the officer making the selection has to bear in mind the probability that a great number of jurors will be challenged without cause shown and, consequently, a panel is selected which is frequently anything from five to six times greater than is really necessary, or than ought to be necessary. It is considered that this is unfair to the jurors, and increases the expenses of the courts to the State. The proposals as regards the right to challenge without cause shown are set out in the Bill. We believe those provisions to be ample to cover what should be the rare case where a prisoner has any real cause to object to a juror, and yet cannot express his objection in a sufficiently definite form under his right to object for cause shown.

There is a change proposed in the matter of the honorarium to jurors in civil cases. It is proposed to depart from the time-honoured one and ninepence, which was fixed a long time ago, to five shillings. I may admit that the change is not in any ratio to the alteration in the value of money since one and ninepence was fixed.

Mr. JOHNSON

The price of a drink.

Mr. O'HIGGINS

It would buy a man's luncheon if he did not have any drink.

Mr. HEFFERNAN

Would the Minister explain Sections 53 and 54 —"Abolition of challenges to the array," and "Challenges to the polls."

Mr. O'HIGGINS

The challenge to the array was a challenge of the entire panel on the ground of some technical mistake in its preparation. It was a thing that never operated in practice. A challenge to the polls, of course, is a simple challenge, either a peremptory challenge without cause shown, or a challenge for a cause shown. But the challenge to the array was to have the entire panel set aside. It is proposed that the rateable qualifications for jurors shall be fixed not by Statute but by Order, and that is a matter which perhaps requires some explanation necessary for a juror is fixed by Act of Parliament, namely, by a schedule to the Jurors Qualification (Ireland) Act of 1876. The qualification there is between county and county and between towns and country, the idea being to fix in the district a qualification which would provide sufficient jurors while maintaining a certain standard of responsibility. The Act in question is 50 years old, and it is suggested that circumstances have changed considerably since 1876.

This appears to us to be eminently a matter which ought not to be dealt with by Statute, but should be capable of being varied to suit the varied circumstances in each county. The distribution of land, for instance, in a particular county would affect the matter. If the land in any particular county is being divided in such a manner that large holdings are disappearing and being replaced by more numerous small holdings, it is clear that where a qualification of £40 might previously have secured a sufficiently large panel of jurors, under the changed circumstances it would produce hardly any panel at all. There is also the consideration that there is no security that the standard of rating will remain the same for a long period. As regards houses, the present position is that the rateable valuation does not even approximate to the actual annual value. In short, our view is that the Minister for Justice should be in a position to revise at frequent intervals, if necessary, the rateable qualifications for a juror in any county or part of a county, having regard to the actual circumstances of the moment. In some counties at present under the statutory rule there are far too many jurors and the standard is too low. In other places, not so frequent, the exact opposite is the case.

Under the law as it stands, there is, in general, one book for the common jurors of each county. So far as the criminal work goes there is no objection to this arrangement, as criminal juries have always been drawn and will continue to be drawn from the entire county. Juries for civil cases are drawn only from the civil bill division with which the court is dealing at the moment. If we take, for the sake of clearness, a county of moderate size with only two large towns at which the County Court Judge formerly sat: To each town a definite area was assigned called the civil bill division, so that the county was divided for civil business into Civil Bill Division A and Civil Bill Division B. It is assumed that the Circuit Court will continue to sit at these two towns in this particular county, though in general the Circuit Court will not sit at as many places as the County Court sat. Assume also that it will be found convenient in the Circuit Court, as in the County Court to have a system that, except for urgent matters, any court that sits in a given town will deal only with the civil business arising in a definite area around that town. In small counties the whole county will probably be the area — for instance, a county like Longford. In large counties there will perhaps be two or three areas for as many towns. Coming to the question of the jury book in this county with its two divisions — Civil Bill Divisions A and B — at present there is only one jury book for the entire county. But the law prescribes and the actual practice is that when the court sits at A in one of the Civil Bill Divisions, the jurors for civil business shall be drawn only from that area — only from that Civil Bill Division. The jurors are arranged in the county book in alphabetical order without regard to their particular place of residence. In the ordinary way the officer selecting the panel would merely read through the names in alphabetical order until he had a sufficient number of jurors. This plan must be modified if he is to exclude all the jurors except those from Civil Bill Division A — the particular civil bill division in which the court is sitting.

The statute therefore provides that in this particular case the officer selecting the panel shall, whenever he comes to the name of a juror who does not reside in the division, pass over that name. In that way a panel is obtained composed entirely of jurors residing in that particular Civil Bill Division. The objection to this system is that the names in the jury book are not marked off in regular order. The sequence is gapped or broken. The twenty-third name in letter A may be struck off before the twenty-second, and the last name before several names that occur higher up. That difficulty, taken in conjunction with the difficulty in construing the meaning of Section 18 of the Jurors (Ireland) Act, 1871, has resulted in all sorts of difficulties and irregularities, not perhaps serious in themselves and certainly not such as are likely to cause a miscarriage of justice, but such as it is thought desirable to remove now when we are revising the law upon the subject. What is proposed is to have a separate jurors book for each division.

In this county that we are taking as an example with two Civil Bill Divisions there will be a jurors book for each division. When a civil panel is required for Division A it will be drawn in strict sequence from the jurors book for that division. Similarly for the other divisions. When a criminal panel is required, whichever division the Court is sitting in it will be drawn from the entire county.

Perhaps the only other matter to which I should draw the attention of Deputies is the exemption set out in the first schedule from jury service. These points exhaust the substantial changes in the law as it hitherto existed.

Mr. JOHNSON

There is one point the Minister has not dealt with. I do not know whether it is changed or not, but it occurs to me that the position, as stated in the Bill, seems to require alteration. It is the question regarding the administration of oaths. I find, for instance, that a juror who states, with regard to his religious belief, that he is neither a Christian nor a Jew, may, if the judge will so permit, be sworn in any manner which he states to be binding on him. "If the judge so permits." But if the judge does not permit? Then we have sub-section 5 of Section 50, which says: "If any juror refuses to be sworn or insists on being sworn in a manner not authorised by or by virtue of this Act he shall not be included in the jury then being sworn, but the judge shall impose on him a fine not exceeding £10 and not less than £5." So that we are asked to pass an enactment which leaves a religious man who is neither a Christion nor a Jew at the mercy of the judge's predilections in that matter — that he will necessarily be fined £5 if the judge does not permit him to be sworn in a manner which his religion makes binding. That is a difficulty that I think might be looked into. It seems to me it is likely to cause injustice if we had Chinamen, Mohammedans, Confucians, or any other particular religious people coming to this country who are not Christians or Jews.

The only other point I want to touch upon is the portion of the Minister's statement regarding the reaction from the position of the previous Act in respect to women jurors. I could imagine the Minister making exactly the same case if he was proposing a new franchise Bill which stated that voters shall be only male persons. It would be a very great convenience in the running of elections if there were no women voters. It would save an immense sum of money to the Department of Finance if all the women voters were eliminated. All the inconveniences and administrative difficulties that are due to the appearing of women on the jury list might well be said to be applicable to the case of women voters.

Mr. O'HIGGINS

I only mentioned finance in reference to the middle position — the position in the 1924 Act. The expense is out of all proportion to the result. But if you are prepared to consider the 1919 position, then I do not urge expense there if you are prepared to advocate the whole hog — compulsory jury service for women.

Mr. JOHNSON

My position, frankly, is that, as the Constitution expresses it, privileges and obligations must go together for all citizens, and it always seems to me that jury service is one of the corollaries of voting power. It is one of the necessary obligations that go with the privilege. I agree at once that there may be many exemptions, but I think we are wrong, quite apart from the practical working out of this thing, in enacting, in this bald way, that only male persons shall be jurors.

I should imagine that if this object were to be really sought it would have been better had it been put in Section 4 and had we stated: "Any person of the female sex or any person who has been or shall be convicted of treason or treason felony or of any felony or of perjury shall, unless she or he shall have obtained a free pardon therefor, be absolutely disqualified from serving as a juror." It seems to me that we are, in effect, cancelling the position embodied in Article 3 of the Constitution, which required that obligations and privileges should go together. This is an obligation of citizenship, and we ought not to make the bald and blunt distinction that only males should serve on juries.

The Minister dealt with some difficult questions. It is quite apparent that there are many cases in which one would not like to have women serving as jurors. But in most of those cases there is either a woman in the dock or a woman in the witness box. If the woman in the dock or in the witness box has to suffer all the indignities, indelicacies and indecencies that come out in court, I think it is not too much to expect a woman in the jury box to undergo the same ordeal. If that is not a sufficient reason, you can secure your end in that particular class of case by using the power of challenge. You might even make it one of the grounds of challenge. The judge always knows beforehand the character of a case. If it is thought necessary to save women the ordeal of serving in this particular class of case, then service could be obviated by way of challenge.

I think the present proposal is undesirable and is creating another sense of grievance amongst one sex in the community — one half of the citizenship of the country. It may be quite true to say—I think it is true—that 99 per cent. of women would be glad to be relieved of this duty. But 99 per cent. of men might be glad to be relieved likewise, so far as they themselves are concerned, though they would not agree that it would be a desirable thing to abolish the jury system altogether. There are a considerable number of people who go so far as to say that because they have occasionally to bear the burden and submit to the obligation of jury service that the jury system ought to be abolished altogether. I think we are taking a wrong step in this Bill and that we are giving another occasion for an agitation of a kind which is not healthy and which is undesirable and should be avoided. Ninety-nine per cent. of the women of the State might be glad to be relieved of this duty, but nobody knows better than the Minister that the other one per cent. can create as much friction as will cause inflammation of the whole body. It is the other one per cent. that does the damage to the whole body, and I think we ought not to give them deliberate occasion for creating that local friction.

Mr. O'HIGGINS

Which position is the Deputy advocating? There are, of course, three positions. There is this proposal; there is the 1924 Act and there is the 1919 position. I suggest to the Deputy that under the 1919 position we are going to have a certain amount of inflammation too. That provided for compulsory service by women on juries on a parity with men.

Mr. JOHNSON

My position is that we should take the parity with men, but I am prepared to admit the desirability of increasing the number of exemptions.

Mr. O'HIGGINS

A parity with men, but yet not a parity.

Mr. JOHNSON

It is a parity.

Mr. O'HIGGINS

It is not.

Mr. JOHNSON

If a man could say that he had the charge of ten children, he would be exempted by the judge in the same way as a woman. I think we are making a mistake in the manner and form of achieving an end which the Minister thinks represents the wish of 99 per cent. of women. I think the Bill in that respect has a defect, and it is only a question of years when it will be remedied by going back to the position of equality of the sexes in this matter.

Major COOPER

This is a Bill which contains a mass of details which, in the main, can be more suitably discussed in Committee. I only want to suggest to the Minister that when he is concluding this debate he should deal with this question of the exemption of women from jury service on a rather broader basis, because, as far as I have been able to follow his argument, he dealt with a matter of principle very largely on the grounds of expediency —financial convenience, administrative convenience, and so on. I, personally, think that except from the financial point of view — to which, of course, we must all give due weight — the existing position is a fairly satisfactory one. It does not compel any woman who wishes to avoid jury service to serve. She can claim exemption. It does give an opportunity to those women who realise their responsibilities as citizens to serve, and it further gives them an opportunity of educating their own sex, so that there may be in years to come not 5 per cent. but 15 per cent. or 20 per cent. of qualified women asking to be allowed to serve on juries. What, after all, is the basis underlying the whole theory of trial by jury? It is that the prisoner in the dock — I am speaking now particularly of criminal cases—is tried by his peers. Deputy Mrs. Collins-O'Driscoll is not here, and I venture to say that there is no Deputy sitting in the Dáil now who will claim to be woman's equal. Some of them may claim to be woman's superior, but they would hardly pretend to equality. And there are some cases — even criminal cases, and even the unpleasant cases to which the Minister referred—in which I believe it would be advantageous to have a woman on the jury, however painful it might be to her. Take the case to which the Minister referred — rape. As a rule, there is only one witness in a case of rape, and that witness is the person on whom the rape was committed. It is very much easier for a woman to tell whether or not another woman is telling the truth than it is for a man. I would go so far as to say that it is almost impossible for a man to tell whether a woman is telling the truth or not. After all, the object of this Bill is not to shelter women or to remove them from a sphere in which they are unsuitable. It is to secure the better administration of justice, and I still have considerable doubt as to whether this exemption of women from jury service is going to secure a better administration of justice. I am not absolutely decided on the subject. I am open to be convinced by the Minister. But those doubts do exist in my mind, and I hope the Minister will deal with the question on broader lines than he dealt with it when he opened the debate on the Bill. It seems anomalous that a woman barrister may sit in court, and even plead to a jury of men, while a woman may not serve on a jury. It is even more anomalous that under one sub-section of this Bill a woman who is not allowed to sit on a jury is, nevertheless, obliged to send her husband to represent her if she has rateable property of a certain value. Her husband becomes liable for jury service. That seems hardly a fair proposition, and I think the Minister should give us fuller grounds than he has given us for this proposal. The exemption of women is only portion of this Bill, and it is a portion which we can consider and vote on in Committee. The rest of the Bill represents a desirable reform, but I would like broader reasons and stronger arguments in regard to the position of women in respect to jury service.

Professor MAGENNIS

The Minister for Justice gave an excellent democratic reason for doing away with the special jury. He declared that special juries represented class legislation, which gave a peculiar advantage and privilege to men because of their higher rating. Is it not peculiar that the Minister who is so alive to democratic principles in regard to special juries should not realise that his own proposed legislation, by which he would exclude one whole class of citizens from service on an ordinary jury, is also class legislation, and is undemocratic?

Mr. O'HIGGINS

The Deputy is playing with the word "class."

Professor MAGENNIS

If I play on the word "class" would the Minister prefer that I should use "species"? Does the Minister ask us to believe that woman is less than man—a distinct and separate species? If he does not ask us to believe that, will he refuse to accept ordinary language and describe women citizens as a class of citizens? Surely, a Government that has been so meticulous in its Civil Service Regulation Act as to introduce sex, sex, sex repeatedly in its various clauses is alive to its own operations, as separating men from women within the law, and while assigning certain duties to one, removes them from the other? Would the Minister suggest any other term that would describe the thing better than the term "class legislation"? The principle upon which he does away with the special jury class is a sound principle. It is thoroughly democratic. But when we come to equality of citizenship a woman, because she is a woman and for no other reason, is to be barred. The Minister is quite alive to the fact that representative women have spoken in denunciation of this proposal. He gets rid of the authoritative character of their statement by describing them with the customary jibe, as self-appointed. After all, they may retort, has the Minister any special mandate for this legislative proposal that would save him from the retort that in this matter he is a self-appointed exponent of the views of women citizens?

We all know, very well, that service on a jury is not a popular thing. No one, man or woman, is eager to serve on a jury. I remember on one occasion passing near a house where a man had committed suicide. I was on the point of being imprest on the coroner's jury and I was very glad to plead the privilege of being a barrister, to exempt myself from service. That, no doubt, was bad citizenship. I plead guilty, but in that I represented the vast majority of human beings who, though they recognise the doctrine of citizenship and are willing to accept the responsibilities it imposes, would be very glad to be exempt from service when on occasion it is unpleasant or irksome, or where it involves, as it did in my case, interference with the discharge of the work that they are paid for doing. The Minister's case for himself as not self-appointed is that under the provision of the Act of 1924, which allowed exemption from service to be applied for by women on the panel, not ten per cent. of women were willing to serve. That is a very fine example of special pleading. Let me put this consideration to the Minister. Supposing there was a similar Act allowing men to ask for exemption, that they had merely to apply in court for exemption and exemption was accorded, what percentage of men does he calculate would be willing to serve on a jury?

Mr. O'HIGGINS

About 60 per cent.

Professor MAGENNIS

I am not as adept as the Minister at the ready manufacture of statistics. He can very well understand what human nature is. As a matter of fact, there is a long list of exemptions from jury service on the British statute book, as a result of continuous petition. There was a time when to sell stamps exempted a man, and many people paid the duty for the licence to sell stamps in order to get the exemption that went with it. What is the case that the Minister has made for interfering with the law as it at present stands? That women do not like service. But he does not propose to exclude men because men do not like service. What he is trying to hide from the public is that it is not because women do not like service he is exempting them but because it is women who are in question. We have seen this all along with regard to the treatment of women under the Civil Service Regulation Act.

There are unpleasant cases. Does the Minister think that men like these? There are people with tainted minds that love the tainted matter, but I think the vast majority of decent men would shrink from the ordeal of sitting on a jury and hearing details of certain types of cases. It applies equally to the clean-minded man as it does to any woman. The Minister introduces a lot of sentimentality that did duty in the Victorian age, by which men and women are discriminated between. Chastity is demanded from women with such insistence by writers and public speakers that we would be almost led to believe that the insistence on it was meant to suggest that the same law did not exist for men. Why is a man to be considered as a proper victim for listening to these cases and pronouncing a verdict?

I do not assent to the principle, if it can be called a principle, that underlies this discrimination, this supposed superior delicacy of soul or spirit. A woman well on in years, a married woman who has seen a great deal of life, knows and understands many of the details of the under-world quite as well and has as keen an appreciation of what it involves, more so perhaps in some cases, than an ordinary man much younger and of less experience, but the younger man is to be selected for the jury and the capable woman excluded because she is a woman. It always comes back to that last resort, that when we analyse and look for a reason it is because it is a woman is in question. The Minister, in the course of his argument, allowed us to know that stenographers, the official shorthand notetakers in the courts, are to be exclusively male for a similar reason. Women of certain Victorian ideas ought to be precluded from this occupation.

Where is it to stop? The next provision will be to exclude women from membership of the Dáil. Deputy Cooper has drawn attention to the fact that women are eligible for membership of the legal professions, and surely it is an absurd anomaly that the same class who may be briefed to take part in an inquiry into one of those unpleasant cases will be excluded from service on a jury in a similar case. The Minister on another matter, the matter of challenges, spoke in language that showed a similar prejudice animating him. He spoke as if the prisoner in the dock was always guilty. The prisoner in making his challenge without cause was to scan the countenance and the appearance of the proposed juror, and if he felt that a juror showed indications that he would comply with his oath and find a verdict according to the evidence, then the prisoner would have that juror challenged without cause. It is part of the mentality of the Minister that is exemplified in that jibe. He began with jibes. I do not care to mention individual names, but I have before my mind, without mentioning the name, one woman writer who protested in the daily newspapers against this proposal, and I think if the personality of the writer and of the Minister were subjected to a public verdict, the verdict would unquestionably be with the writer in question, as authoritative an exponent of educated women's opinions and desires in public life at least as any member of the Executive Council. You do not get rid of cases by jibes. The Executive Council of the present day hugs the pleasant delusion to its soul that if it is merely scornful enough and derisive enough it has got rid of an excellent argument and well-founded principles.

The exclusion of women from service on juries serves no good cause. In addition to putting a badge of inferiority on women as women, it discourages women as a class, or would tend to discourage them, from taking a practical interest in public affairs, more particularly with regard to the application of laws. Surely if the Oireachtas, in framing the Constitution, gave equal citizenship to women as to men, and thus recognised that their votes, the votes of women, were as good as the votes of men in the selection of legislators, administrators and controllers of administration, it follows as a rational corollary that the same class of mind, exercised out of the same type of experience, would be serviceable also for the advantage of the State in taking part in the administration in the courts of law of the legislation made by the legislators that they had voted into office. If it could be shown that women were hysterical in the jury box or that they had given good grounds in consultation in the jury room for the belief that they were incompetent or prejudiced, a case might be made, but that case was not made here. The Minister did not attempt to say that the experience of women on juries was one which showed them to be disqualified by sex. Statistics might have been forthcoming surely if a real case were to be made. The whole thing is based on sentiment and on a priori considerations: these are women, they do not like it, it would please them to be excluded, it would save them from the necessity of petitioning for exemption, therefore we will exclude them.

The Minister gave an extraordinary illustration of the protest of leading women, women whose names are identified with all the movements in favour of the acquisition and assertion of equality of citizenship for women. The vegetarian, he said, wants to do away with the use of meat by everyone. Those women, on the contrary, are not vegetarians declaiming against the use of meat. The normal general practice in regard to dictaries is the use of meat, and they claim that they are the real advocates of the use of meat and not vegetarians. It is the Minister who is the vegetarian; it is the Minister who wants to reserve for one class and for one section, if he likes, of the community a certain civic right by the exclusion of another section. Now the great consideration in this matter is: is it a privilege, service on a jury, or is it a duty? I regard it as a duty while at the same time I sympathise with those who would prefer to escape its burdens. Those who wish to escape the burden and are women can do so under the 1924 Act. If there are others of public spirit, actuated by high motives in the interests of the community and of other women, who are willing to undergo the inconvenience and all the attendant annoyances of serving upon juries, why should a law be passed here to say "you shall not"? Above all, what is the meaning that is given as a reason for that imperative, "You shall not"? It is: "You are women." Do women pay rates and taxes? Are they not concerned in the operations of the law? Is not a woman as much concerned as any ordinary citizen in the right finding of correct verdicts by juries? This is class legislation and of the very worst type.

Mr. O'HIGGINS

The discussion, as I rather expected, has centred mainly around the proposal to exempt women citizens from jury service. Deputy Cooper invites me to discuss that on a broader basis than that on which I based the proposal when speaking on the Bill. I do not know that I ought. I think the basis I put forward is broad enough to carry the proposal. Under the 1924 Act we made the exemption of women citizens automatic on application, and what did we find? That not more than 10 per cent. remained on the register and who, judging by the protests when they turned up in Court, remained on the register only because of inadvertence or failure to take a positive step that would have secured exemption for them. They were very dismayed and very concerned when the summons to serve on a jury came along, and in a great many cases their first act in court was to protest vehemently to the judge against being summoned at all. There are difficulties of accommodation, financial difficulties, and so on, that if they are to be faced must have some result in proportion to the expense and trouble of facing them. There is the question that courthouses in accommodation, and particularly in accommodation for juries, was provided in the past for men only, and certain obvious embarrassments arise when the accommodation has to be shared by both men and women.

It may be said that is a small matter. Any money consideration is generally said to be a small matter. To expend a certain sum of money would remove that difficulty. The same remedy, of course, removes a great many difficulties, if not all, but it is not a remedy which we are anxious to apply if it can be avoided. In view of the question of numbers, which I dealt with, we do not think there is a strong enough case for its application in this matter. Many women, as I have said, did not put in a claim for exemption at the right time. They did not take the positive step that would secure exemption, but they did not hesitate to ask for exemption at a later stage from the judge in court. In the year 1925 in all the juries, numbering thousands of jurors, which sat throughout the State, including the very numerous juries in the Central Criminal Court, Dublin, there were between 30 and 40 women, and that is the net result of what may be described as permissive service, optional service under the 1924 Act. To achieve that result every rate collector in the country had to return every year to the county registrar the name of every woman who had the necessary rateable qualification, and the county registrar had to inquire of each woman whether she wished to be exempt, and if she did so wish he had to strike her name off the list. If she did not express the wish to have her name omitted off the list, her name appeared on the jury book and she was duly summoned on the jury panel. If she got on the panel she frequently asked to get off, and if she remained willing to serve she was frequently challenged or ordered to stand by.

All that is not done without expense. My submission is that expense is not justified, and that we are entitled to assume there is no such strong feeling in the country as to make it necessary for us to continue this system. There is a somewhat parallel case — there is the case of a man who is in every way fit for jury service but has not the necessary rateable valuation. He, as you know, may be ten times richer and more thoroughly educated than many men who have that qualification. Why is not that man called for jury service? The answer is simply that we can get enough of jurors without, and it would cost a good deal in additional inquiries to get a list of such men. That is one aspect of the case. With regard to women jurors, we can get enough of jurors without them, and it costs us more in machinery to get them to the very limited number of 30 per annum than we think justifiable. That is my case, for if you measure the cost, beginning with the rate collector and the county registrar down to the sub-officials that it took to deal with the women's section of the jurors list and apportion that between the 30 women who served in 1925 you would have got them dear.

Major COOPER

Can the Minister give us an estimate of the possible saving?

Mr. O'HIGGINS

I cannot, for it is so much a question of officials' time, and so on, that it would be very difficult to give even an approximate estimate, but the Deputy can take it that all that work in the preparation of the register did cost a substantial sum. If you are to add to that substantial sum in the provision of accommodation in the court for women jurors, and set against that the result of 30, 40 or 50 women jurors per annum, as under the 1924 Act, then I say it is not a business proposition. There is some case for exemption, as there is for exempting the wealthy man who lives in a hotel. He is too dear to get at. The administrative expenses make it not worth while. The machine will work without him, and that is partly my point of view with regard to this question of women jurors. We can fill the jury box. Men are not called on oftener, I suppose, than about once every three years. It is unnecessary to impose on the women citizens this service which such a high proportion of them find extremely irksome and unpleasant. It is not just good enough to make the debating point that we would all find it unpleasant, that men would find it unpleasant, that men would be glad to be released. Men qua men, if I might put it that way, would not be glad to be released. The individual with his own concerns, and so on, would, no doubt, be glad to escape jury service that would make an encroachment on his time and on his occupations. But men have not that shrinking from the duty, that reluctance to go into the box and face the ordeal of sitting for perhaps four, five or six days trying a man for his life that the normal woman has. A few words in a Constitution do not wipe out the difference between the sexes, either physical or mental or temperamental or emotional, and the Deputy knows it, but it suits him to pretend that it does. It does not. The case is this: The vast majority of the women citizens of this country, as of most countries, dislike this work, dislike it intensely, and would be grateful to the Government that would relieve them from it. We can afford to relieve them from it. There is not the necessity of putting this unpleasant duty on the women section of the country's citizenship. There is no standing ground between compulsory feminine jury service and the proposal in the Bill. The attempted standing ground of the 1924 Act is simply ludicrous in its results, and in expenditure and administrative trouble out of proportion to these results.

Professor MAGENNIS

Who passed the 1924 Act?

Mr. O'HIGGINS

I introduced it as an experiment and the experiment has given this result — thirty women per annum, at an entirely undue expense in time and money. Therefore I, at least, am satisfied that there is no standing ground between the 1919 Act and the 1927 Bill. It has got to be one thing or the other. It has got to be compulsory jury service for women citizens on a position of complete parity with men, or it has got to be exemption. They have got to be classed with the Governor-General, the Attorney-General and members of the Oireachtas as people who are exempt from jury service. Deputy Johnson asked why did I not say that felons and women are disqualified. That is a quibble. Instead of saying that, I say that the Governor-General, Deputy Magennis and women are exempt from jury service.

Question put and agreed to.

Committee Stage ordered for Tuesday, February 22nd.