COUNTY COURT.

New Zealand Colonist and Port Nicholson Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 68, 24 March 1843, Page 2

COUNTY COURT.

After the usual forms had:been gone through, the Clerk of the Court proceeded to call, over the list of persons summoned as Jurors. When Mr. Revans’ name, was called, he asked permission to address a few words to the Court. Upon his request being granted, he stated to the effect that he could not act as a juryman, as the law under which jurymen had previously been summoned, had expired on the Ist of March; and that the new law had not been brought into operation, he believed, in consequence of the existence of some insurmount T able difficulty. By the law which was to have come into operation after the Ist of March, it was declared that there should be a Registrar, whose duty it was to make and publish a list of persons qualified to act as Jurors; but no Registrar had been appointed* nor had any list been published. Under these circumstances, he should .consider himself criminal if he was party to any verdict.- 1 His Honor Judge Hals Well replied, that they did not know that a law had not been made. In-the-.meantime, the Governor might- have, called the Legislative and. passed := a la#i •" : ._ • r ■■' • - -■■-n .f.rr.uoC' Mr.- Revans replied- that, though British subjects were presumed to know the law, this presumption could not be extended to imaginary laws ; and he might -have added, that by the Charter of this Colony, no law can take effect until it has been published. The Clerk of the Court then read the proclamation, after which his Honor announced that it was a maiden session; that there were no criminal cases for trial; but before dismissing the Jurymen, he would beg to call their attention to the state of the gaol of Wellington. The building, which was about 51 feet by 27, was crowded, at one time, with 57 prisoner, who were associated indiscriminately, the untried with the tried, children with adults, debtors with criminals, and females with males. From want of classification among the prisoners, he could not but consider the gaol as the hot-bed of vice and crime. From the ex r perience he had had in England of the great benefits to be derived from the separate (not solitary) system, he hoped that when our new gaol was erected, that that plan would be adopted. It was the peculiar province of the Jury (there being no visiting magistrates as in England) to inspect the gaol, and it was to their interest to make such representations to the proper authorities, as would hasten a better system of prisou discipline in this Colony^