The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1887. PAYMENT OF JURORS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1476, 7 February 1887, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1887. PAYMENT OF JURORS.

Independently of the mental anxiety which falls to the lot of the unfortunate citizen who is so unlucky as to have his name drawn for the jury m a criminal case such as those which have recently occupied our Courts for a week or more at a stretch, it is altogether unfair that he should be called upon to suffer considerable pecuniary loss m serving his country. And that is precisely the state of things which now obtains m New , Zealand, the scale of pay of jurors m criminal cases being as follows : — • Jurors residing within the city or i town m which the Court is held, 3s 1 per day; residing beyond the town, ; but not beyond seven miles from the 1 Courthouse, 45 ; beyond seven miles and not beyond twelve, 6s ;, beyond twelve miles and not beyond twenty, 8?. Now, seeing that an ordinary , laborer can earn at the least 5s per , day, and an artizan from 10s to 12s, j it is obvious that every man who is called to serve upon a jury, unless he happen to be out of employment, must ! be a direct loser to an extent which m many cases would be felt seriously m the event of a trial extending over ' several days. And the juror alone of ( ail concerned is singled out as the suf- * ferer for society's sake, for as the New 3 Zealand Times points out—" Every- * one else concerned m such trials as * these is well and handsomely paid. * The judge has his salary of l or £1700; theregislrar his or £600, the other officers have their \ proportionate pay; the counsel on both sides receive large and sometimes n splendid fees and 'refreshers,' but to t the poor juryman is grudgingly doled c out a wretched pittance less than that * which the so called unemployed scorn- d fully rejected." We entirely concur with f our Wellington contemporary m the 0 view that " common justice as well as a public policy demands that, if we take c away men from their wp.rk and compel \ them nolens volcns. to undertake arduoqs v and m,pst important public duties, we 0 ought to pay them proportionately. At f least they ought to suffer no personal £ loss, and m fairness they ought to be adequately paid for the work they do." As to the possible rejoinder, that to pay jurois adequate remuneration would increase the cost of the administration of justice, the Times very properly point? out that the plea that we cannot afford to d° *h' 8 I s '• merely the answer A of the man who ' cannot afford ' to pay Dl hjs just debts," concluding a very sensible article as follows : — •' If we can only afford to pay judges and not ' n juries, then we have no moral right to ' v employ juries. But if we deem juries D( »n essential part of our legal system, hen we ougftt to make up our minds 01 0 pay them properly.' We do not ad- dj nit, however, that this course would m ncrease the cost of administering justice. Phe only difference would be that it <j ( rould spread over the whole community fj he cost which now is most unjustly as :ast upon a few individuals—those who ar re so unlucky as to be draw for urymen, A\ present thej hav§ to •ear all that loss and expense which is i:_ leemed too heavy to be borne by the be »üblic at large. Is this just ?. Surely L. ot. On the contrary, it is a scandal n n our nineteenth-century civilisation, nd the sooner it is got rid of the n t letter. Mr Tole has distinguished irasslf already by some useful reforms * ther Justice Bepßnr^ep|:, Let bjm his'aUeptipn now to the direction re'jiave suggested, and all generations Cc f jurymen sha?l call him blessed." be