CRIMINAL LAW REFORM.

Kumara Times, Issue 1046, 7 February 1880, Page 4

CRIMINAL LAW REFORM.

The telegraph announcement that the Recorder of Leeds has been appointed public prosecutor, in pursuance of the Act of last session, marks the attainment of a stage in .criminal law reform in England (writes the Sydney Morning Herald) which has long been earnestly desired by those capable of appreciating the necessity for it, and the want of which has constantly given rise to flagrant scandals in the administration of justice in the mother country. According to the antiquated, but not yet exploded theory of English criminal proceedings, a criminal trial is in fact a litigious suit between the Crown and the prisoner, which any member of the community whatever may set going, or which, if no public spirited or or interested person presents himself, may never be set going, at all. The form by which the prisoner is given in charge to the jury, especially in cases of misdemeanor, which include some of the worst crimes, embodies this theory in a distinct shape. The jury are to “ try the issue between our Sovereign the Queen and the prisoner at the bar,” The practical result has been that everybody, however much injured by a crime, has flinched from prosecuting, because of the expenses and inconvenience to which this interference has generally led; the charges, for instance, of securing a conviction at Quarter Session or Assizes for stealing a pocket-handkerchief having been known to amount to LSO. Even in the case of murders, it has rested entirely with the police or with the Treasury whether or not an accusation shall be persisted in ; and where no public attention has been called to the offence, nor interest excited by the newspapers, there has been every inducement to let the matter rest, and not spend time, money, and trouble about what may prove an unremunerated quest. The ends of abstract public justice were entirely neglected. The new institution of a Public Prosecutor will not interfere with ttie rights of the general community to initiate proceedings, but will secure that wherever there is a probability of conviction, public justice shall not suffer for want af energy or private funds to bring , the accused to trial.