Before the Minister concludes, I have not been a sufficiently long time a member of the legal profession to express what are the opinions of the profession on this matter, and if I speak on this I speak entirely as a layman, with a layman's point of view that I had formed when I was a member of Government. Here is the peculiar situation that presents itself to my view. A Committee was set up to investigate the working of the Courts of Justice Act of 1924. Those who represented Fianna Fáil on that Committee reported against the addition of any judges, and they reported against the addition of any judges notwithstanding all the evidence that was given as to delay in the hearing of Circuit Court appeals. That was the only point on which there was supposed to be delay in the courts. As far as the criminal work was concerned, as far as the hearing of ordinary High Court actions was concerned, or the hearing of cases that went from the High Court to the Supreme Court, nobody raised any question of delay or of inefficiency in working in any way. The whole point upon which the Committee pivoted was the hold-up with regard to appeals from the Circuit Court to the High Court. The evidence given on that may be taken roughly in this way: that there was, in the main, a year's arrears piled up as far as that type of case was concerned, and that was the only thing on which there could be an allegation of delay.
In the then situation of the country the Fianna Fáil Deputies on that Committee, after hearing all the evidence with regard to that type of delay, voted that they could not approve of the appointment of new judges until the economic condition of the country had improved, and then, when they had improved, they desired that the judges to be appointed should be appointed at less salaries than the salaries that were being paid to the judges then sitting on the bench. In addition to that, it is a well known fact that in any elections which were held when Fianna Fáil were in opposition— even when by-elections were held and when certain legal gentlemen stood as candidates—one of the posters most vigorously used was the poster which showed the immense salary payments, starting with the salaries given to judges. I think it is not an unfair conclusion to draw from that that Fianna Fáil was resolutely opposed to (a) the payment of high salaries to judges; (b) to numerous appointments being made and (c) that they were then impressed with what they called the bad economic situation.
Why the change? Must not one approach this with the utmost brazenness and the most complete cynicism, that following a Budget which grips old age pensions, which takes something off the unemployed people and taxes bread, butter, sugar and tea, the Party that did not approve of the appointment of judges, that did not approve of the payment of salaries to certain judges should now be asking the House to vote a Money Resolution for the appointment of additional judges. If anyone is going to tell me, in the face of the last Budget, that the economic condition of the country has improved, then he has a big case to sustain by argument in this House before he succeeds in getting it across to the long suffering community.
In addition to that, what is the case with regard to delay? A series of appendices was published to the Report of the Committee that considered the Courts of Justice Act, 1924. There were statistics with regard to the cases originating in the Circuit Court and these were divided into certain groups. They covered a three-year period. I do not know whether it is actually so or not, but one can arrive at an average by taking a group of cases and dividing it by three. If one does that, a certain result is revealed as to the number of cases originating in the Circuit Court in each of the three years covered by the appendices to the Report of the Committee that dealt with the Courts of Justice Act, 1924. I set down some questions recently to find out how far legal work was improving or disimproving, and I asked for results over the five years that have intervened since these appendices were produced. I took the figures given in bulk, and by dividing them by five I found that the Circuit Court work has gone down by one-third. The results were the same as in the previous case where the three-year period was taken.
The amount of work that is now going to the Circuit Court is only two-thirds of what it used to be, and even that result was rather fallacious because, when I made further inquiries, I found that the average under one heading, namely, damage to property, had risen from, say, about 10 or 12, in each of the three years covered by the first return to something in the neighbourhood of 500 or 600. I knew, of course, that that was a fallacy and I probed it further. I then found that the damage to property cases bulked somewhere in the neighbourhood of 3,000 or 4,000. They were listed as returns in the Circuit Court. Of course, these have only occurred in the last 18 months and will not occur again. They represent an evanescent type of work. If the figures relating to these cases are subtracted from the ordinary Circuit Court work, it means that the work in the Circuit Courts has gone very much below the two-thirds mark of what it used to be.
Finding that these were the results, I pursued the matter further and asked a question with regard to criminal work. I do not know whether it is a matter that we can be pleased about or not, but on the point of accuracy, at any rate, it has been found that as far as the criminal work is concerned it is on the increase. It is the only type of legal work that shows an increase. When speaking of criminal work I am adding in cases that come before the Military Tribunal, as being the type of work that if they offered—and it is open to doubt that they would offer so often—before ordinary judges, would be criminal work. When I take the same criterion with regard to the High Court work a surprising result emerges. Cases originating in the High Court had apparently settled round about the number 7,000 for the five years prior to 1932. They began to go down before the beginning of the year in which Fianna Fáil came in as a Government. They went down considerably the year after, and in 1934 they amounted only to 4,500. They had therefore dropped by more than one-third.
The situation, therefore, in the legal world, apart from the criminal side, is that there has been a great decrease in Circuit Court work. We know that that work has gone to some point lower than two-thirds of what it used to be, and that High Court work has fallen by about the same amount. In these circumstances, with less work to be done, and with a more impoverished community, we are asked to vote and to supply salaries, I suppose, for two or three great patriots, who are ready to make the supreme, or the Supreme Court, sacrifice for their principles. There ought to be some case made to justify the introduction of this measure in these circumstances and at this time. There is no work requiring the addition of these judges. There is certainly no work that would impress itself upon the mind of any member of Fianna Fáil, who previously thought, as the Party thought, in relation to this matter, when they urged on the Committee that the country could not afford more judges. It cannot be said that it can now afford this any better than previously. I put it mildly, comparing the present with the times that existed five years ago—too mildly indeed to explain to farmers and others who find their all now being seized in a rather uncertain type of legal activity. It is hard to put it to them that they should have possibly to bow their backs even a little bit more, in order to meet the cost of appointing people to the bench to deal with a declining amount of work.
The only excuse that can possibly be alleged is the argument rebutted by Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney regarding the Supreme Court. It is an argument that always amazed me, one founded on the numerical strength of the Supreme Court. It used to be said that with a Supreme Court consisting of only three judges, there was this weakness, that on some cases coming from the lower courts, on a simple enumeration, you might find a greater number of judges favourable to the defeated side than to the side which eventually won. That may still happen with a Supreme Court of five. There is, however, strength and strength. Increasing the Supreme Court by the simple addition of two judges does not necessarily add strength to that court. Conversely, it would be possible to strengthen it by adding a single individual, if that person were some one learned in the law, who would commend himself on the mere mention of his name. I comment so, all on the assumption that the Supreme Court requires extra strength, a point on which I venture to express a doubt, and by way of caution to remark that it certainly cannot be taken that there is unanimity in the view that the Supreme Court requires such numerical or other enlargements.
There is the further argument based on the plea that our Supreme Court is the final court of appeal. Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney replied on that also. It always was the final court of appeal; it has always been so regarded and so treated; there is no recent change; and in that argument there is no great weight. There is one more feature about all this. I know from being inside the Government for some years that there was a very stern and long drawn out battle waged by officialdom to get the fees for resort to court raised—the court fees that litigants have to pay. Officialdom was repulsed many times in these onslaughts but is now victorious. The victory has been won, although at the beginning we started out to make resort to the courts cheaper. We have a clause in this measure which gives the Minister for Finance power to increase court fees, and there is no upward point beyond which the Minister cannot go. I know well the fallacious arguments used to show the necessity for doing that. Very fallacious comparisons were made as to what part of the cost of justice in England was borne by court fees and what proportion of the same costs was borne here by such fees. When considering such figures it must be accepted that criminal work cannot pay for itself. I never saw the real comparison made, the percentage of the relative costs of civil justice in England and here that is borne by the court fees in each country. It is, of course, not clear in the Bill whether the victory is a complete one or only a minor success. Up to date the repulse of the officials had been the practice. Now they have won for the first time. And so court fees are to be raised, and this country, which set out to make a reduction in the cost of resorting to the courts, is now turning its back on that purpose, and admitting that we cannot achieve this reduction. I regard the emergence of this as ominous. The efforts and the persistence of certain people who did not take rebuff lightly, but who persevered in their efforts, are now being rewarded.
On the fees section, in the latter part of the Bill, the official mind is predominant, and the Government has been swayed to take the step of making resort to the courts more costly, and so more difficult. How far this will go we do not know, but the first step is here. Has this matter of the court fees a bearing on the legal business now left to be done? From the figures given, taking them roughly, it can be said that the legal business now arising is only about 65 per cent. of the work that used to be done. Yet, in such circumstances, we decide that we had to have a few more judges. Why? How is anyone to go to the community and explain what has brought about the change of mind in Fianna Fáil Deputies who, at one time, could not be brought to think of appointing new judges, who thought that those appointed were always highly and extravagantly paid, and who felt that even with an improvement in the economic condition of the country, there was another matter to be considered, and that an investigation should be made into the French system of appointing judges. This system, I understand, puts judges on a much lower level of salaries, and this was the system recommended here— to put newcomers to the bench on a lower level——
