ABOLITION OF THE GRAND JURY.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 6, Issue 294, 3 August 1865, Page 1

ABOLITION OF THE GRAND JURY.

[Prom the Lyttelton Times, July 22.]

The utility of an institution such as the Grand Jury at the present day appears to be a matter of great doubt. Its abolition has been mooted in England, but the old custom has hitherto been too powerful for the arguments used against it. Now that the General Assembly is about to sit, it may not be out of place to offer a few remarks on the subject; so that, if possible, the matter may be brought before that body, with a view to enquire whether the institution of the Grand Jury is not an antiquated formality, and, if not utterly useless, at least unnecessary. The Grand Jury in England, as our readers are aware, “ consists of gentlemen selected out of the county by the Sheriff, and returned by him to the sessions, of the peace and commissions of oyer and terminer, and of gaol delivery, to inquire, present, do, and execute all those things which, on the part of the Queen, shall iheu and there be commanded of them.” Their duty is to inquire into and present to the Court bills of indictment in the various cases which may be sent before th6m, taking the evidence of the witnesses on oath. If they find a true bill they make a note upon the indictment to that effect, or vise versa. No doubt, in days gone by, the Grand Jury was found a very useful institution, and one of considerable value ; because then the magistracy was composed of men who did not shrink from acting with oppression, either from corrupt motives of their ow'n, or as servants of a tyrannical Government ; and in such cases the interposition of the Grand Jury proved a boon. It has been handed down to us from feudal ages; and although it has many times thought out of place in the present age, and although many political thin ers and writers have advocated its discontinuance, yet the form still continues in our criminal practice, a cumbersome relic of the past. The magistrates in our day may be no wiser than their predecessors but the changes in the social and political systems have removed any inducement to them to commit persons for trial unless there is a primafacie case made out. Magistrates in former times often committed men on groundless charges, which were originated merely for malicious or political purposes. Theu, the magistrates were entirely creatures of the Grown; now, they are as entirely independent of it. Then the magistrates had scarcely any standard of law or practice but their own discretion. Now, the course for the magistrates to pursue in indictable felonies and misdemeanors is so clearly and distinctly pointed out to them, in that useful statute known as one of “ Jervis’ Acts,” that U seems almost superfluous to call upon the Grand Jury to go through the same course, and determine whether there is a prima facie case made out against the person accused, in order to pnt him on his trial before a petty Jury. Moreover, we think that a magistrate, on whom direct responsibility rests, who is accustomed to hear cases of a criminal mature, and who is well versed in the te-hnicalities of evidence relating thereto, is a much better judge of whether the case is a proper oue to go to a jury, than twenty-three gentlemen chosen from the general public, most of whom in alt probability do not know the difference uetween larceny and swindling, and perhaps never opened a law book in their lives. And, independently of this, the Grand Jury, in this province at any rate —we don’t know whether it is the same everywhere—have often seemed to suppose that they were trying the person indicted, instead of simply being called on to enquire wh. ther a prima facie case has been established. We have known in this place some cases where bills were returned into Court by the Grand Jury as ignored, when the accused were prepared, ami stated their intention, to plead guilty 1 For the foregoing reasons, and many others, we think the institution, instead of facilitating

justice, in a great measure tends to impede its course; and we hope soon to learn that it is to be numbered amongst the things that were. A much better course Jo adopt, after the committal by the magistrate, would be to send the depositions to a thorough competent gentleman who should be appointed by the Crown, for each province; and to let him decide whether it is a case for a jury, or one where the accused party should be liberated. We think this is the course adopted in the colony of Victoria, where they have no Grand Jury ; and, as far as we can ascertain, it has been found to work admirably ; not only because it saves a large expense to the Government, ut in that it protects the liberty of the subject; for, supposing an error of judgment to have been committed by the magistrate, surely it is a cruel thing to keep a man in gaol, perhaps for three months, before his trial, without a case against him.