I move: "That the Bill be received for final consideration."
Public Business. - Juries (Protection) Bill, 1931—Report.
I wish to enter a protest against the unseemly haste in introducing this measure and the rapidity with which it is being passed through the House. It is a very serious matter, if we are to regard it purely from the point of view of getting the best kind of trial, combining the benefits of a good judicial system with the democratic element which has been contained in the institution known as jury trial. If we wanted to examine and see how that system could be improved, it should not have been done in this hasty way and the Bill should not be rushed through this House as an emergency measure when no emergency exists. It interferes to some extent with the work which we may be doing in the autumn when we shall have before us, on the promise of the Minister for Justice, a Bill dealing with the whole operations of the Courts of Justice Act. If the Minister was anxious to improve the system on a permanent basis and to arrive at some system which would remedy any defect that may exist even in a jury system, we could have had that matter brought before us as a Committee. If the Minister had chosen to put that question before us he could have done so, and in any event, he could have dealt with it in the Bill and have given us an opportunity to deal with it in an impartial and careful way, the only way to establish a proper juridical institution in the country.
Instead of that we have this Bill foisted on us, rushed from one stage to another, and put through the House as rapidly as possible, while Bills like the Town Tenants Bill, which has been hanging fire for months, and others of equal importance, such as the Transport Bill, have not yet appeared above the horizon and are not being considered. We are, however, being rushed into legislating for nothing in particular. There is among jurors a feeling that this Bill is an insult and degradation of their office. Many of them feel that it would be better to revert to the old system and to leave them without this so-called protection. We have done all we can to protest against the introduction of this measure, but, in spite of that, it has been rapidly taken from one stage to another and now brought before the House for final consideration. The original Act has not done what the Minister expected it would do. It has not prevented the names of certain jurymen from getting to the knowledge of the ordinary public. Nothing could prevent that, because the jurymen would have to live under a system of secret inquisition, would have to be accommodated in closely-covered vans, and appear in court in a condition of disguise so that no one would know who they are, before that object could be achieved.
Of course the Minister could not reestablish that kind of inquisition in the country, but he did the next best thing, and so he has all the odium of injuring the jury system as a democratic institution without getting any of the benefits which he had hoped would come by the measure. One would have imagined that in the course of the experience of the measure, commonsense would have asserted itself, and that now, at the time when it occurred to the Minister to reintroduce the Bill, he would at least have left it over until such time as we were considering the whole problem and then dealt with it in the proper spirit, in the spirit of tackling the legal problem of how to deal with the jury system from a democratic point of view, at the same time securing an impartial administration of the law.
We appear to be in the position now that the Minister wants this Bill for propaganda purposes. It will not however serve his purpose from a Party point of view because the people have grown cold about all this shouting of "Wolf! Wolf!" I am making no reference to either of the Deputies of the House, by the way; I am referring to the story of the boy who had so often given warning of the coming of the wolves that in the end nobody paid any attention to him. The Minister for Justice has been too often crying out about the breaking up of law and order, and so on, and while doing that with one voice, in another capacity he is trying to create trouble and disorder, so that in every way this Bill is to be condemned. It is to be condemned as ineffective because it does not achieve in any way what the Minister wants. It is to be condemned because it is breaking in upon the proper system of law and order. It is ill-considered, and conceived purely from the partisan point of view and not in a cold and impartial spirit. It is also to be condemned because it is an outrage on a large section of the community.
Panicky legislation of this kind is generally produced from the pockets of Ministers in or around by-election or general election times. The attitude of the Minister, in bringing in this Bill at this particular period, is quite in keeping with the policy of the Government for the past seven or eight years. I quite agree with Deputy Little that the original Act, or that portion of it which purported to make it impossible to have the names of jurymen made known, has not worked out in the way the Minister desired when he introduced the Act. I do not think that a measure of this kind, apart altogether from the political propaganda which may be made out of it, is likely to create in the minds of citizens of the country who may be called upon to act on juries, the kind of spirit which would make them do their work in the right way and in a courageous way. Therefore, I do not propose to give a vote in favour of the Report Stage of this Bill. We read of shootings at particular periods and we hear no more about them when a certain time has passed. We have read of a dump being found in County Dublin. It was a mistake that it was not discovered in Kildare, but it is not very far away from the border. This legislation brought in at this particular time is in my opinion brought in for the deliberate purpose of creating a "safety first" attitude on the part of electors in the constituency where the people are going to be told "Vote for the Government or vote for those who"—as they say—"stand for disorder in the country."
In view of the fact that the Hell Fire Club dump dope will not be sufficient to carry off this by-election would it not be well to organise a few more shooting outrages?
This is another of the impolitic acts of political propaganda upon the part of the Government. The purpose of this Bill is to extend the Juries (Protection) Act, 1929, the ostensible purpose of which was to protect jurors. I would like to draw the attention of the House to that fact, because I am quite certain that most of the members of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party who are going to vote for this Bill are unaware of the provisions of the original Act. I should like to remind the House of a few of those provisions and see if I cannot secure from the members of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party some indication as to the manner in which they are designed to protect jurors. Section 2 of the original Act gives power to transfer certain functions of under-sheriffs. It reads:—
In every county and county borough to which this section is applied by an order made under this section the powers and duties conferred or imposed on the under-sheriff of such county or county borough by Part V. of the Principal Act whether as empanelling officer, summoning officer or otherwise, shall as from the date of such order become and be transferred to and conferred or imposed on the several and respective officers on whom such powers and duties would respectively be conferred or imposed by the said Part V. of the Principal Act if the office of such under-sheriff were vacant, and accordingly the said Part V. of the Principal Act and in particular the expression "the empanelling officer" and "the summoning officer" where they respectively occur therein shall as on and from the date of any such order be construed and have effect in respect of the county or county borough to which such order relates as if the office of under-sheriff in such county or county borough has first become vacant within the meaning of the said Part V. of the Principal Act on the date of such order.
There is no reference there to jurors with the exception of the reference to the empanelling or summoning officer. There is nothing in that section designed to afford protection to any single juror in the City of Dublin or elsewhere. I would like any member of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party to get up and on the basis of that section, defend this Bill, produce any single reason in justification of it, or show us how the continuance of that section is going to protect a single juror in the City of Dublin in the discharge of his duty. Section 3 deals with the secrecy of the jury panel in criminal cases. The section reads:
(1) Section 50 of the Principal Act shall not apply to a panel of jurors prepared for a sittings of the Central Criminal Court, nor to a panel of jurors prepared for a sitting of a judge of the Circuit Court for the trial of criminal issues, and in lieu thereof it is hereby enacted that the empanelling officer and the summoning officer shall treat every such panel as a confidential official document.
(2) Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in any other enactment, no accused person shall be entitled as of right to a copy of the panel of jurors from which it is intended that the jury for his trial is to be drawn.
It has been stated here, and it is common knowledge, that the names of jurors who have been elected to serve upon juries have been published broadcast in certain newspapers, and whilst publication has been broadcast not one of these jurors has been influenced by that publication, not one of them has been ill-affected by that publication, and not one of them has been injured by that publication. Therefore, what protection does the secrecy of the jury panel as proposed by Section 3 of the Act afford to the juror in the discharge of his duty?
Section 5, to which I would like to draw the attention of the House, is the section under which the principle of majority verdicts was introduced into our jury system. That section states:
In every trial before a judge and a jury of a person charged with any crime or offence, a majority vote to nine members of the jury shall be sufficient to determine the verdict, and the judge shall so inform the jury, and the verdict of such nine members or upwards shall be taken and recorded as the verdict of the jury without disclosure of the number (save as in hereafter mentioned) or identity of the dissentients if any.
I would like that Deputies would bear in mind what the Title of the original Act was. That Title reads:
An Act to make further and better provision for the protection of jurors and witnesses concerned in the trial of criminal issues, and for that purpose to amend the Juries Act, 1927, and the law relating to the administration of criminal justice and to authorise majority verdicts in criminal cases.
The ostensible purpose of the Act was to make further and better provision for the protection of jurors and witnesses concerned in the trial of criminal issues, and for that purpose to amend the Juries Act so as to authorise majority verdicts in criminal cases. In what way can the introduction of the principle of majority verdicts in the jury system of this country afford any protection to the members of the jury? I would like the Minister for Justice or any Deputy on the Cumann na nGaedheal Benches to deal with this measure on that basis, and I would like him to show to the House how the introduction of the principle of majority verdicts into the system of trial by jury can protect a single member of a jury. There might be some case to be made for the secrecy of the jury panel, but I think that will not stand a moment's examination. The introduction of the principle of majority verdicts does not afford any protection whatsoever to the members of a jury. Possibly Deputy Jasper Wolfe may show me how it does. If it does, I confess to being of a rather dense mentality, for I see no justification for introducing this principle on the plea that it is going to protect a juryman.
The next section relates to standing mute or refusing to recognise the court. It reads:
(1) Whenever a person charged in the Central Criminal Court or in the Circuit Court with any crime or offence stands mute when called upon to plead to such charge, no jury shall be sworn for the trial of the issue, whether such person so stands mute of malice or by the visitation of God, but in lieu thereof the judge shall himself hear such evidence (if any) relevant to that issue as may then and there be adduced before him, and, if the judge is satisfied on such evidence that such person is mute by the visitation of God, all such consequences shall ensue as would have ensued if a jury sworn for the purpose had found that such person was so mute by the visitation of God, but if the judge is not satisfied as aforesaid, or if no such evidence is so adduced, the judge shall direct a plea of "Not guilty" to be entered for such person.
(2) Whenever a person charged in the Central Criminal Court or in the Circuit Court with any crime or offence fails or refuses in any way, other than standing mute, to plead to such charge when called upon so to do the judge shall (without prejudice to his powers under the next following sub-section of this section) direct a plea of "Not Guilty" to be entered for such person.
Now that deals with a practice which has grown up in the courts of this country for a long period, grown up practically since 1916. It is one which has been sanctified by the example of good and noble men who have been prepared rather than forswear their principles to suffer whatever penalty the laws of Great Britain or the laws of the Irish Free State might impose upon them. The change which it has introduced is to my mind an unimportant one. I think the judge is just as competent as a juror to determine the issue whether a person is mute of malice or by the visitation of God and, therefore, I do not think the issue raised is of very great importance, but I would like the Minister who has put this into the Bill and who is asking the House to continue this principle in operation, to show how the determination of this issue by a judge instead of by a jury is going to protect a juror in the discharge of his functions. The jury when empanelled has to find a verdict. It can only find a verdict in accordance with the facts placed before it, same as the judge.
No matter how misled people may be towards the jury system or the present administration of justice in this country, no matter what their feelings may be, surely no person would dare to visit on the head of a juryman his anger or hatred for finding upon an issue as to whether a man is mute of malice or by visitation of God. That is one thing, at any rate, upon which any juryman can render a verdict without advertence to any consequences— we deny that there would be any consequences—which even the Minister may contemplate in such a case. In what way, therefore, does the change which was introduced as a temporary measure into the administration of justice in this country protect juries of the future in the discharge of their duties? In what way is the continuance of that system warranted? I would like the Minister to address himself to the issue which I am putting straight and plain. Will he show in what way the operation of Section 6 is going to afford better protection for jurymen who decide whether the prisoner at the bar is mute of malice or by the visitation of God?
Section 7 deals with the clearing of the court during certain criminal trials. It is designed to ensure that the court may be cleared during certain criminal trials. Sub-section (1) of that section reads:
(1) Whenever at the trial of an accused person in the Central Criminal Court or in the Circuit Court, and after such accused person has pleaded "not guilty" or a plea of "not guilty" has been entered for him and before any further proceedings are had, an officer of the Gárda Síochána not below the rank of superintendent states on oath to the judge presiding at such trial that in the opinion of such officer it is necessary for the protection of the witnesses and jurors concerned in such trial that the public should be excluded from the court during such trial, the judge may order the court to be cleared and in that case shall not proceed with such trial until the court has been cleared in accordance with this section.
I am sure the Minister will state that the clearing of the court in these circumstances is going to afford real protection to the jurors, because he may say the identity of the witnesses and the jurors will not be known to the general public. The identity of the witnesses and the jurors will be known to the prisoner. In fact, they may be known to any of the witnesses whom the prisoner may call in his defence, if he chooses. They will be known to the several members of the Press. I am not going to say that any members of the Press would wilfully divulge information which in the discharge of their professional duties may come into their possession as to the identity of witnesses and jurors in a case such as may be contemplated here.
There is one thing I would like to emphasise, and it is that the identity of the witnesses and jurors will be known, not only to the prisoner, but to a considerable number of people. When the identity of the witnesses and jurors is known in that way it cannot long be concealed. It will ultimately become known to the public, and in that way this section does not afford any real protection. The prisoner, after conviction, is entitled to visits as a matter of right. If the punishment is grave he is entitled as a matter of right to see his legal advisers and near relatives. If nobody else should deliberately or inadvertently disclose the identity of those who participated in the trial in camera, the prisoner himself would be able to give that information if he were so minded or if he wished to launch any sort of vendetta—which I deny—against those who participated in the trial as jurors or witnesses. So far as the ostensible purpose of the Act is concerned, Section 7 is valueless, and it will be as ineffective as the other sections I have cited to secure the protection of jurors.
Section 9 prohibits the publication of the names of jurors. It states:
(1) It shall not be lawful for any person to print, publish, distribute, sell or offer or expose for sale or to post up or otherwise expose in any public place the statement in writing or to make by word of mouth the statement in regard to any other person (whether such statement is true or is false) that such other person was called, sworn or engaged as a juror in the trial of any particular criminal issue or any class of criminal issues or was empanelled or summoned or attended as a juror for any sittings of any court for the trial of criminal issues.
That section has been in operation since the 1st August, 1929. Notwithstanding that it has been in operation the names of jurors, as has been stated already in this House, have been published by word of mouth and in writing in several places, so that the section is ineffective in the sense that it does not prohibit the publication of the names of jurors. But it touches a much deeper issue than that, and that is whether in the interests of justice it should be made an offence to publish the name of a juror in a criminal issue or in any issue whatsoever. After all, one of the safeguards that prisoners have in these matters is that their trial should be public; that the names of the judges should be known to the public; that the names of the jurors, who are the judges on questions of fact, should be known to the public and, all that being known to the public, public opinion may be brought to bear in any case in which juries render verdicts not in accordance with the evidence placed before them.
The Minister for Justice has been responsible to a large extent for the perversion of justice in this country. I regard this as being one of those things for which, if he ever becomes known to history, posterity will undoubtedly condemn him. This man has come here and, by interfering with the old-established jury system of the country, he has deprived the citizens of the one great safeguard in that system. He has deprived prisoners at the bar of the protection to which they are entitled. Under this code the names of the judges on the bench who deal with the questions of law, and the judges in the jury box who deal with questions of fact, are withheld from the public and, therefore, a jury can render any verdict they choose. If they are so faithless to their oath, they can render a verdict not in accordance with the facts of the case. It is not unknown that such verdicts have been rendered in this country. If the Minister can carry his new criminal system far enough I have no doubt such verdicts will be rendered in the future. I have no doubt that a Minister who can, as a matter of fact, manufacture dumps in the Dublin mountains——
That was an excursion on the part of Deputy Davin.
I have no doubt that the Minister who sent an armed guard to protect that dump in the Dublin mountains for a period of three months——
The Deputy should endeavour to concentrate on the Juries (Protection) Bill, and disregard the dump.
That dump has been exploded at a fortuitous moment in the by-election in Kildare. The Minister who has connived at and condoned the commission of illegalities by the police force of this country—he has shown himself capable of doing that—will, I have no doubt, ultimately come to the stage where, in order to advance the political interests of his Party, he will not scruple to pack a jury in order to secure a conviction in certain cases. Section 9 (1) is designed to enable the Minister to do that without any fear of the consequences.
There is nothing really objectionable in Section 10. At least I do not see any objection to serving a juror's summons by post instead of serving it personally and by hand. I am not prepared to say that, in view of the changes which have taken place in the system of communication by post in this country, that would not be, on the whole, desirable. I would like the Minister to tell us how it is going to protect jurors. It is going to make it a little more easy and economical for the Minister to summon the jury but how is the service of a summons by post going to protect the jurors? That is the ostensible purpose of the Bill, not to make it easier or cheaper to serve summonses but to protect the jurors. I would like the Minister to tell me how Section 10 is going to protect the jurors in this matter. Jurors, like the great majority of people in this country, have more to do than serve on juries. Many business men find that the time involved imposes undue hardship on them. Industrial workers and others have to lose time and find it difficult to get away from their employment to serve on juries. Consequently, they are prone to evade that service when they can and to that extent the summoning of a jury by registered post might make it a little easier for the Minister to get his panel. But how does it protect the jury? It might be a good thing if introduced in a certain Bill. It is not introduced to enable the Minister to protect jurors and it does not afford any real protection to jurors. Section 12 reads:
Penalties for loitering in vicinity of criminal courts. Every person who, on a day on which the Central Criminal Court or a judge of the Circuit Court is sitting for the trial of criminal issues, loiters without lawful reason in any of the streets or roads leading to the building in which such court or judge is sitting or in any other of the approaches to such building or in any other public place in the neighbourhood of such building or in the district in which such building is situate shall be guilty of an offence under this section and shall be liable on summary conviction thereof to a fine not exceeding twenty-five pounds, or at the discretion of the court, to imprisonment for any term not exceeding three months.
I believe it is already an offence to loiter without proper reason in a public place. I have noticed on certain occasions here—on Armistice days and others—that the police are very anxious to keep people moving who appear to be loitering without any real reason or justification. I believe it has always been an offence under the common law to loiter. I am not sure. I am not speaking as a lawyer, but as a layman. I do not see what special powers the Minister requires in order to enforce the law as it stands at the moment against loitering. The only question that occurs to me is this: After all, justice is supposed to be administered in public in this country. The theory, at any rate before the Minister came to the Department of Justice, was that the courts were open to the public, and that any person had a right to loiter around them or to walk into them if he wanted to. A number of men, like labourers in the vineyard who had to wait for the eleventh hour, even barristers or solicitors, or people of that sort, may loiter around a law court. One might say, from the amount of practice some barristers get, that they might have no lawful reason for being there. But after all there are people of a curious mentality who take an interest in law proceedings. They may not be aware that there is any case on which has a particular interest for them. Some person may come along and tell them that there is a great case in Judge So-and-So's court, and they may desire, having been informed of these proceedings which may be a source of amusement, interest or instruction to them, to go there. They may not make up their minds to go there until they have spent half-an-hour or so around the courts. Surely there is no justification, so far as the protection of juries is concerned, to prevent these people from taking an interest in law?
There are curious people who take an interest in legal proceedings, even though they are not lawyers or servants of the law in any form. Surely they may be entitled as of old to enjoy whatever pleasure they may take from the law courts without the Minister, in the name of the protection of jurors, depriving them of it? The common law is there for loiterers if they create a nuisance. A man may loiter without any lawful reason whatsoever, but unless he constitutes himself a public nuisance surely he is entitled, if he wants to laze away the time, to loiter, around the law courts at Dublin Castle, as he may loiter around the Bank of Ireland or Grafton Street, on an afternoon, or loiter in any other public part of the city. Surely there can be no justification in the name of the protection of jurors for preventing him from doing that? There may be other reasons, but they certainly do not relate to the protection of jurors.
I admit I have detained the House at some length on this Bill. My justification for so doing is that I am quite well aware that many members of the House who are going to vote for the Minister on this matter, are not aware of what the Minister proposes to do. I have tried to put the Bill before the House, and I have tried to show the implication of its provisions. I defy any member of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party to show me where a single section of it is going to fulfil its ostensible purpose, and that is to protect the jurors. They cannot keep their names secret. Even the system of empanelling them by numbers has failed to do that. There is no provision which the Minister can make that will prevent the names of the people acting as jurors from becoming known to the public. We may as well face that fact. If justice is to be done, it can only be done in public. The moment it takes to hiding itself in a back room, and making its agents ciphers and numbers, there is created in the public mind a suspicion and disgust of the whole system which will defeat the ends of the Minister. The ends for which the Minister has introduced his Bill are not to secure the protection of the jurors but to secure the easier conviction of the political opponents of the Government. I appeal to the House not to be misled by the Minister any further. Even when this Act was going through, the distaste which it created in large sections of the Government's normal supporters was so great that the Minister was compelled to make temporary what he had intended to be a permanent feature of the criminal system in this country. I ask that the House should refuse assent to the passage of this Bill, because, by extending the terms of the Act further, they are tending to make it what the Minister intended it should be at the start, and what they refused to permit him to do— to make it a permanent measure.
I must confess to a feeling of some sympathy with what has come from the Opposition and from Deputy Davin. Perhaps that arises from the fact that I have been close on forty years, subject to an interval of six years, a friend of the dock, and any Bill or any statute that would take away from an accused person the privileges which he has enjoyed would not have my sympathy or support. Deputy MacEntee has told you, not once, but at least a dozen times, that the sole object of this Bill was the protection of jurors. So far as that is its object it has my entire sympathy and support. Jurors are entitled to protection, and they have, under this Bill at all events, got some measure of protection. I am glad to be able to say that the Bill has in practice proved a success, and not to continue it would be to take away from the jurors the protection which every honest man wishes to give them. A juror is entitled to protection, and he must get protection so far as the law is able to do it. What Deputy MacEntee has told us is that the law is unable to protect the jurors. I hope that day will never come about. Possibly Deputy MacEntee would like to bring it about. It would be a very queer period in the history of this country if the law were not sufficiently strong to protect jurors. The law is strong enough, and it is the duty of the Minister for Justice to see that the law is strong enough to protect jurors and that jurors will be protected.
The Bill does a great deal more than that. It takes away from the accused person a privilege which he had so long enjoyed, of being entitled to square with impunity the jurors by whom he was about to be tried. It is taking away from the accused the system of potting at jurors and the privilege that he so long enjoyed of being entitled to see jurors beforehand. In the area in which I practised I was perhaps the chief friend of the dock, and when I left in the year 1916 I was able to say this, that over a period of sixteen years in my area there had been no conviction against any professionally defended criminal. That was a very proud record. You could not say that to-day, because the privileges which the accused then enjoyed of going around and seeing jurors in advance has gone, and gone never to come back.
I will give you an instance showing the extent to which that system had gone. I remember a juror in my area stating that he had an objection to serve. He was pressed to state his objection. He was very slow in telling it, and the judge came to the conclusion that someone had been trying to square him, and that the honest man was objecting to serve on these grounds. At last the judge persuaded him to speak, and he recorded his objection in these words: "Your Honour," he said, "I know nothing about either of these parties," the fact being that he had not been canvassed by either side, and it was none of his business. That system has gone. Friends of the dock like myself look back with very great affection to the easier times which we enjoyed under the old system, when we had a jury there cut and dried. The new system is not working well. I was talking to a man in a case in which I was engaged from the defendant's point of view. It was a civil action, but it applies more to the criminal side than to the civil side. The jury had retired. I was on the other side, but I said to the man "How is this going, Mr. So-and-So?" knowing that he was interested. "Going badly," said he. "I had only time to speak to two jurors. I hardly knew one of them." He did not approve of this system. He condemned the Minister for Justice in the most unmeasured language. The people of this country who believe in law and order, and they are the vast majority of the people, the people who believe in a fair and equitable trial, are behind the Minister for Justice, and he may go on unflinchingly, secure in the fact that he has got the confidence of the vast majority of the people of this country behind him. He has got their encouragement, and I would say to him very respectfully: Turn neither to the right nor to the left, but go ahead on the road to justice. Give people a fair trial and that is all they really want. I know that they are getting it at present. I agree that there are more convictions than there were in the good old days. That is bad for the felons. It is bad for the guilty persons, but I do not know of any case in which a person got an unfair trial since the present Government came into existence.
I do.
Mr. Wolfe
I do not know of any case in which a wrong verdict——
We are confined now to the period since the Act. came into operation and to the provisions of the Act.
Mr. Wolfe
I am pointing out that the provisions of the previous Act, as continued by this Act, have brought about a successful position. They have brought about an improvement of justice. There is no question about that, and I am pointing out that that being so I cannot see how anybody believing in the maintenance of law and order has any other option save to vote in favour of this Bill.
May I ask through you, a Chinn Chomhairle, Deputy Wolfe a question? Does he consider it just under this Act that only the State should have the right to interfere with jurors?
The State does not interfere with jurors.
Mr. Wolfe
The State has no such right.
I feel it almost an insult to the intelligence of the House to follow Deputy MacEntee through the long, rambling and ill-informed speech with which he worried us a few moments ago. Deputy MacEntee does not seem to know the very first thing of the matter which he discussed so vigorously and so loudly. For instance, he said the only thing that he could see in a certain section of the Bill was that it made it easier for the Minister to summon a jury. The Minister does not summon juries. He said it would be easier for the Minister to pack a jury. The Minister for Justice has nothing in the world to do with juries. The Minister for Justice does not conduct trials in this country, as Deputy MacEntee ought to know. Just in that fashion he goes along and pours out a string of the most inconsequent nonsense, more inconsequent nonsense, I think, than this Dáil has listened to for many a long day.
I will just take up one or two of the things which he dealt with. He said it would be absolutely absurd where the county registrar is now the sheriff to say that putting the powers in the county registrar's hands to summon jurors would be a protection. If you wished to have the names of jurymen kept back from persons who wished to injure these jurymen in their persons or in their property the smaller the number of hands through which that list passes the better. He said that a verdict of nine or a verdict of twelve could be no protection to a jury. Of course it is a protection, because even criminals do not like to shoot without cause and even the persons who think, as Deputy MacEntee must think, that there is a sacred right in a prisoner to assassinate a juryman who tries him would like to know that the individual whom they assassinated had actually found them guilty.
If there is a majority verdict they cannot know. There might be a disagreement and the very person whom they murdered might be one of the persons who was in favour of an acquittal. If it was necessary to have a unanimous verdict they would be perfectly sure. So right on through the Bill. He said that the provision in regard to mute of malice is not a protection. Of course, it is a protection. He said that jurymen were never intimidated in cases where the issue was mute of malice, and that jurymen refused actually to find a verdict and men were put back when the issue was as to whether they were mute of malice or mute by the act of God.
We are told that the Act has not been of any use. I may say on the working of the Act that since it came into force only two men have refused to recognise the court, and one of these a very short time afterwards came forward and apologised for having done so. I am told by Deputy MacEntee that the names of jurymen have been published. The names of jurymen have been published, but they have not been published since the passing of this Act in any paper. Let Deputy MacEntee produce any paper in which they have been published. I will be very much obliged to him if he does; but no such paper exists, and the names of jurymen have never been published in any paper since. I say that with absolute confidence, because I am sure it would come to our knowledge if it had been done and prosecutions would have followed forthwith. I am told again that this Bill has been no protection, that it has not saved jurymen from being intimidated. It has. As I stated on the Second Reading, the only attempt which has been made to intimidate jurymen since the Act was passed was a complete failure. They could not get the names of the jurymen, because they could not get the panel. They circularised jurymen at large, very few of whom were actually on the particular panel, and a great number of jurymen received no intimidatory notices. So much of a success has the Bill been that the powers which we asked for and got from this House under Section 8 have never been put in force. It has never been necessary since the passing of the Act to apply for the adjournment of a case because the jury had been intimidated, and intimidation and canvassing of jurymen were going on wholesale before that. Yet I am told that this Act has been no good and should not be extended.
We are told that this Bill is brought in because an election is coming and are asked why we should not wait until the autumn. The Bill has been brought in because the Act will expire in a few months' time and this Bill must be passed during this Session and brought into law, otherwise there will be a period within which the jurymen will sit without the protection of the Act and that, as far as I am concerned, is a state of affairs that is so grossly unfair to jurymen that anything I can do to prohibit it will be done. We heard two very disgraceful speeches, at least in my humble judgment, one from Deputy Davin and another from Deputy Buckley. When the Guards have done one of the most useful services that they have performed, when this association, whose object is to upset existing conditions in this country by armed violence, received the greatest set-back that it has received, when the headquarters were found out and their most valuable documents and their most valuable armaments were discovered, what do we get? Woe and grief from a smug hypocrite on the Labour Benches.
I think the Minister should not use the word "hypocrite" about a Deputy, and I think he ought to withdraw it.
If that is so, I withdraw the observation. Then I hear from the other side a suggestion on behalf of those persons that the murders they committed were not committed by them—a thoroughly disgraceful statement, in my humble judgment.
Question put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 67; Níl, 48.
Tá
- Aird, William P.
- Alton, Ernest Henry.
- Beckett, James Walter.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Blythe, Ernest.
- Bourke, Séamus A.
- Brennan, Michael.
- Brodrick, Seán.
- Byrne, John Joseph.
- Carey, Edmund.
- Cole, John James.
- Collins-O'Driscoll, Mrs. Margt.
- Conlon, Martin.
- Connolly, Michael P.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Craig, Sir James.
- Crowley, James.
- Daly, John.
- Davis, Michael.
- De Loughrey, Peter.
- Doherty, Eugene.
- Dolan, James N.
- Doyle, Peadar Seán.
- Duggan, Edmund John.
- Egan, Barry M.
- Finlay, Thomas A.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Good, John.
- Gorey, Denis J.
- Haslett, Alexander.
- Hassett, John J.
- Heffernan, Michael R.
- Hennessy, Thomas.
- Hennigan, John.
- Henry, Mark.
- Hogan, Patrick (Galway).
- Holohan, Richard.
- Jordan, Michael.
- Kelly, Patrick Michael.
- Law, Hugh Alexander.
- Leonard, Patrick.
- Lynch, Finian.
- Mathews, Arthur Patrick.
- McDonogh, Martin.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Murphy, James E.
- Nally, Martin Michael.
- Nolan, John Thomas.
- O'Connell, Richard.
- O'Connor, Bartholomew.
- O'Hanlon, John F.
- O'Higgins, Thomas.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Mahony, The.
- O'Reilly, John J.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Redmond, William Archer.
- Reynolds, Patrick.
- Roddy, Martin.
- Sheehy, Timothy (West Cork).
- Thrift, William Edward.
- Tierney, Michael.
- Wolfe, George.
- Wolfe, Jasper Travers.
Níl
- Aiken, Frank.
- Allen, Denis.
- Anthony, Richard.
- Blaney, Neal.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Boland, Patrick.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Broderick, Henry.
- Buckley, Daniel.
- Carney, Frank.
- Carty, Frank.
- Clancy, Patrick.
- Clery, Michael.
- Colbert, James.
- Corkery, Dan.
- Corry, Martin John.
- Crowley, Fred. Hugh.
- Crowley, Tadhg.
- Davin, William.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Everett, James.
- Fahy, Frank.
- Flinn, Hugo.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Gorry, Patrick J.
- Goulding, John.
- Hayes, Seán.
- Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
- Houlihan, Patrick.
- Jordan, Stephen.
- Kennedy, Michael Joseph.
- Kent, William R.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Kilroy, Michael.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Moore, Séamus.
- O'Connell, Thomas J.
- O'Kelly, Seán T.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Ruttledge, Patrick J.
- Ryan, James.
- Sexton, Martin.
- Sheehy, Timothy (Tipp.).
- Walsh, Richard.
- Ward, Francis C.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Duggan and P.S. Doyle; Níl, Deputies G. Boland and Allen.
Question declared carried.
Fifth Stage ordered to be taken tomorrow.