New Zealand Colonist. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1843.

New Zealand Colonist and Port Nicholson Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 60, 24 February 1843, Page 2

New Zealand Colonist. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1843.

Our attention has been directed to the peculiar condition of this Settlement with regard to the Jury Laws. If we have not been misinformed, we are at the present moment in the position of having, for the first time, witnessed the operation of the now existing law on the subject, while that by which it is to be superseded has not, and cannot, for some time, come into operation. The Ordinance under which Juries have hitherto been regulated, expires, we are informed, on the Ist of March ; but the Ordinance by which

it is to be replaced is, and for some time at least must remain, ineffective. Such at least is the representation which has been made to us, and the enquiries which we have made certainly tend to confirm the view thus taken. It appears that, during the last session of the Colonial Legislature, an Ordinance was passed, confining the privilege and the burthen of serving on Juries to freeholders. But, in order to the framing of Jury lists, certain preliminary

.-tops were requisite, which were to he taken by an officer to be'called the Registrar of Deeds. He was to frame lists, which were to be published, to be open to exception and revision in

something the same manner as the lists of voters, and which, when revised and settled, were to remain in force for a specified period. These lists were to have been prepared before the first of January, in order to come into operation on the Ist of March. And on this Ist of March, the old Jury Ordinance, passed in the first session of the Legislative Council, under which we have been acting for nearly a year and a half, was to become totally inoperative.

The new Jury Ordinance, it would seem, has failed in both particulars —that of form, and that of substance. There has been no Registrar of Deeds, who might frame the requisite lists ; and there are no freeholders ; for as no one in New Zealand can have a freehold estate excepting by or through a grant from the crown —and as no grants from the crown has yet been issued for this district, no one is possessed of the necessary estate. This is attributable, in some degree, to the unexpected period which has been occupied in examinations of the Commissioners of Land Claims. But we cannot but think that some means might have been adopted of avoiding this difficultv. Freehold titles-might have been registered conditionally, subject to the report of the Commission—and with the fullest confidence that in every case, or with so few exceptions as to be perfectly inconsiderable, those conditional registrations would become, by his report, unqualified. Out of the freeholders thus registered, a list might have been framed, and all the benefits which the new Jury Ordinance was intended to confer, and which we are willing to believe that it will produce, might have been realized; or at least the singular dilemma in which we are now placed might have been escaped.

It is needless to follow out in detail the inconveniences which will thus be produced. The more important question is, what remedv can be applied ? We are sorry, that we lack the easy political creed of our contemporary, or we might recommend a proclamation of the Governor, re-establishing the old law. As that, however, would be not merely unconstitutional, but inefficacious, we can only suggest that his Excellency the Officer administering the Government should convene his Legislative Council, which we believe he has the power of doing; and should pass a brief law, re-enacting the present Jury Ordinance for a year longer, within which time at least we mav reasonably expect that the machinery for the other will be in operation.