Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, MARCH 27, 1911. JUDGE AND JURY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10197, 27 March 1911, Page 4

Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, MARCH 27, 1911. JUDGE AND JURY.

The assembling together v of two or three, score of law-abiding citizens at the Supreme Court buildings in Masterton to-day, under summons to do service by their King and Country, leads to a natural discussion of the ethics of a system which confers the privilege and responsibility of determining the guilt or otherwise of those -charged with felony upon "twelve good men and true." ' In the first-place it must be remembered that the person raigned has been held by a Magistrate, or Magistrates, to have - a prima facie case to answer. It does not follow, however, that he will be compelled to stand his trial. A body of laymehj selected in a,'more Or less indiscriminate manner, and . designated a "Grand Jury," has a right; of veto. It may, in its wisdom, determine that a case should not have been sent by a Magistrate to the common jury, and in such circumstances the Crown cannot proceed. Why it should have been thought necessai-y to confer upon grand jurymen a jurisdiction which enables a layman to over-ride the opinion of a Stipendiary Magistrate, the Crown Law Office, and the Supreme Court bench, is difficult to discover. Yet, such is the law as it has come to us through .centuries of what is more euphoniously than correctly designated "British justice." No less remarkable in its simple absurdity is the co-related judicial antiquity known as "twelve, good, men. and true." The idea of twelve men, selected chiefly on account of. their mediocrity, being more fitted to determine the guilt or otherwise of a prisoner than the trained'legal luminary who occupies the Bench, strikes one. as sublimely ridiculous. There'is little wonder, ui such circumstances, that the name of justice .at, times: becomes a term of reproach rather than a : synonymity of reverence and respect, audi that

the judicial processes should act as an incentive rather than a deterrent to crime. The judicial system, altogether, is full of anomalies. It has nothing special to recommend it, save its fidelity to ancient and" exploded custom. Possibly, as indefensible as the double-barrelled jury system is the lack of uniformity which characterises the sentences imposed by the Supreme Court Judges. In one part of the Dominion we find a Judge sentencing a man to five years' imprisonment for an offence which another Judge would have regarded with less seriousness, and for which a sentence of twelve months would have been considered sufficient. The disparity at .times between the sentences is so marked as to he almost incredible. The law provides a maximum penalty in all cases, but, as much is left to the discrimination of the Judges, it is right to expect that an approximation to uniformity would be arranged by the Judges themselves. Meanwhile, as the efforts of some of our public men hare been directed towards crminology, it is devoutly to be hoped that they will, embrace the judicial as well as! the prison system in their - investigations. The one is as much in need of reform as the other.