Might I ask you to consider Section 12 again? I understood at the last meeting of the Committee that the coroner would have power to take evidence of witnesses other than medical witnesses.
SECTION 12.
The reason I did not put in any special section is that in Section 17 (f) as at present numbered, you have a power given to the Minister " as to the expenses to be paid to witnesses and others."
It is unfair that a witness who has to stay a day away from work should get no remuneration.
We might insert in Section 12 which we have passed: " In the case of a witness examined before the coroner who is not a qualified medical practitioner it shall be lawful for the coroner to award such sum in respect of maintenance and travelling expenses." That would come in at the beginning of Section 12.
You would have to be careful about a legally qualified practitioner, because the examination might be made by an expert chemist; that is a special examination and they are both provided for.
The point you have raised deals with the question of travelling expenses and maintenance allowance. That would not cover the question of wages. The travelling expenses would be nil in the case I have in mind. It is loss of time and money I am thinking of.
"The coroner may allow such sum as he may think fit for maintenance or travelling expenses or compensation for loss of time." You are introducing a big change. A workman or anyone who attends a common jury gets a shilling, and you are now going, where a man is taken from his home and brought in and asked to sit half an hour, to give him compensation for loss of time.
I do not mean it in that sense, but in the sense where a man loses a day or half a day.
It is a big departure. Common jurors sit week in and week out and they only get their shilling.
The number is very little.
That is equally so in the case of coroners. One man would not be summoned more than once a year. I think if you said " Such reasonable expenses."
" The coroner shall allow such sum for expenses as he shall consider reasonable."
The coroner must have a receipt and go to a certain amount of trouble and a great many of those attending will never look for it.
The case for allowing this is not half so strong as it is in the case of common jurors, who, I thought, were very badly treated.
I move to add to Section 12 a new sub-section (2) as follows:—
" (2) In the case of any other witness attending and giving evidence at an inquest, if the coroner shall certify that special circumstances exist he shall allow such sums for expenses as he shall consider reasonable, not exceeding in any one case the sum of £5."
Question put and agreed to.