Public Business. - Juries (Protection) Bill, 1929. Motion for Allocation of Time. – Dáil Éireann (6th Dáil) – Wednesday, 29 May 1929 – Houses of the Oireachtas

“That not more than six hours be given to the Committee Stage of the Juries (Protection) Bill, 1929, and that the proceedings in Committee on the Bill, if not previously brought to a conclusion, shall be brought to a conclusion at the expiration of the aforesaid period of six hours by putting from the Chair forthwith and successively any Questions necessary to bring the proceedings to a conclusion: Provided that after the expiration of the said period of six hours a Question shall not be put from the Chair on any amendment save on an amendment set down by the Government.

I do not think that I need argue against the amendment in view of the result which it clearly would have. The adequate discussion of any measure depends not at all so much on the amount of time actually taken up as on the spirit in which the discussion takes place. If Deputies on all sides are content to put points which are reasonable and at sufficient length to have them understood, and to take up no more time than is absolutely necessary to have them understood, it is possible to have a really good Committee discussion on a much longer and more complicated Bill than this within six hours. In spite of the fact that a good many amendments have been put down, if Deputies take the matter in a reasonable way it will be possible to have a thoroughly good discussion of the details of this Bill within six hours. The principles of the Bill have been already discussed at very considerable length on Second Reading, and in view of the time already spent, and in view of the fact that it is proposed to allot three hours for the Report Stage, I think that the six hours proposed for the Committee Stage would be quite sufficient.

As I said, this Bill is called the Juries (Protection) Bill. The Minister for Justice did not describe it as such when introducing it. He stated that it was a Bill to improve generally the administration of criminal justice in this country. "Improvement” was the word he used. It is not the word I would use, but that is perhaps beside the point, and I do not know if the Ceann Comhairle would admit if that is in order. The Bill must be considered by us in relation to the amendments which we know the Government propose to introduce, and which they undoubtedly will have passed. The Minister for Justice is the puppet of the forces behind the “Irish Times.” He is prepared to come to heel, not when he is criticised by fifty-seven representatives in this House, but when he is criticised by the writer of the-leading article in that journal. We argued here for two days against the making of this Bill a permanent measure. The Minister ridiculed our arguments and treated them with scorn and contempt, but as soon as the whip was cracked by the “Irish Times” he changed his tune. The Minister himself is now coming forward to introduce an amendment which he ridiculed when it was suggested from these benches.

It is this Bill, as a temporary measure, that I suggest we have now got to consider. We have got to consider whether the changes which the Government propose to effect in the jury system are changes which should be made for a short period only. If there is one institution in this country in which there should not be periodic changes, constant chopping, and constant alteration it is in the system of the courts. If the Bill was introduced to deal with a certain situation which, as alleged, exists in this country, then it should be confined in its operations to dealing with that situation. But the Bill was introduced as a permanent measure, and it proposed to effect changes in the jury system without any relation whatever to any situation now existing in the country, and it is still proposed to effect those changes despite the fact that the Bill is now to be a purely temporary piece of legislation.

The Minister for Finance may, of course, adopt the view that any attempt to change a proposal introduced by the Government—by the ten or eleven wise men who constitute it—is so iniquitous in itself that every device should be availed of in order to prevent its happening. Possibly there is not in the whole of the sixty-four or sixty-five members of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party one man with sense enough to see what the Government are proposing to do. I do not believe that. I, apparently, hold a much higher opinion of the mentality of the general members of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party than the members of the Executive Council do. I believe that a number of them, at any rate, are reasonable men, and that after they have heard a reasonable case for every single amendment that we have on the Order Paper to this Bill, they might be induced to ignore the Party whip for one lucid moment and come into the Division Lobby along with us. The Minister for Finance spoke of the amendments altogether. They were all, he told us, introduced merely for delaying purposes. He did not go to the trouble of indicating a single one of the amendments which it could be shown was introduced to that end.

We propose to delete certain sections of the Bill. We do not approve of the Bill, and we want to make it as little harmful as we can. We believe that every single section of it could be deleted with advantage to the country. We could make a separate case for the deletion of each section of it. I do not want to discuss the Bill in detail now, but there are certain sections of it so obviously foolish and so obviously designed merely to stir up trouble in this country, that it is possible we may succeed in getting a majority in the House in favour of their deletion. Members of the Executive Council, and the Minister for Finance, should not forget that they had at least one vote in favour of the Second Reading of the Bill from a Deputy who described it as a prostitution of the jury system. No doubt that Deputy will be delighted to hear that it is only going to be a temporary prostitution of the jury system, and therefore can reconcile his conscience with the vote which he gave for the Bill on Second Reading. Possibly there are other Deputies who also thought it to be the class of Bill the Deputy described, but who have, notwithstanding, voted for it, because of their ties to Cumann na nGaedheal and their obligations thereunder to the Executive Council. It seems to me that a Bill of this kind dealing with one of the most important institutions of the State should not be steam-rolled through the Dáil. We think it is a very undesirable precedent to establish. We think Deputies should oppose this motion if for no other reason than that it does establish a precedent. As I have said, this Bill is probably one of the most important that is likely to be introduced into the Dáil in this session, and the Government propose to treat it as a minor measure. They do not propose to allow the same time for discussion on the Committee Stage as they allowed for at least one half the Bills introduced last year.

Some of the Bills took weeks in Committee. The Cork City Management Bill was before the House for almost the entire period of three months. The Censorship of Publications Bill was up in Committee day after day, and a much larger number of amendments was introduced than in the case of this Bill, yet there was no attempt to closure discussion on these measures. Does the Minister for Justice think the Censorship of Publications Bill a more important measure than this? Does he think more danger would arise to the stability of this country if that Bill was obstructed than is likely to arise through this Bill if passed? I stated on the Second Reading that my view of this Juries (Protection) Bill was that it was not introduced to protect jurors, but in pursuance of the Government’s policy to stir up disorder, and to keep alive the hate and bitterness created by the civil war in 1922. They are playing the one game all the time. They realise that it is to their party advantage to keep the national forces divided. They are playing on the one string, without policy, programme or constructive ability. They have no hope of maintaining their position in the country, except they base it on the hate created here when the guns were opened on the Four Courts. It is because the Bill is of that nature that I appeal to the Deputies of Cumann na nGaedheal, some of whom have, as I have said, a reasonable outlook, to vote against the proposal to closure discussion on this Bill. If they are not afraid to stand over the votes they will give, they will vote against this motion. We will give them adequate opportunity of making any case they have for every section of this Bill. If they think their case is good enough they will not be afraid to make it. It is because they know that no convincing argument can be produced against this Bill that they will vote for the closure, because they are afraid of criticism of the measure and afraid of public opinion. They have seen that opposition to this Bill is not confined to supporters of Fianna Fáil or the Labour Party. They have seen, as I have said, a leading article in the “Irish Times,” and that has brought them to a realisation of the danger of their position. They have seen such conservative journals as the “Irish Statesman” criticising and denouncing the Bill. It is because they have stepped on a wasps’ nest that they are trying to push through this Bill in the dark, because they are afraid to push it through in the open. There is a case to be made against this Bill that has nothing to do with any need that may exist for affording protection to jurors. This Bill has an ulterior motive.

It is a continuation of the campaign which opened at the by-election in the North City to misrepresent the position in this country, to stir up disorder and try and make conditions here something like what President Cosgrave described them to be, because they know people realise that conditions are not one-half as bad as they are trying to make them, or as bad as he wants them to be. We have seen how President Cosgrave telegraphed to America not to mind the scare-mongers. The only scare-mongers concerned in this matter are those sitting on the Government Benches. They started the scare and they pushed the scare. When the North City election was over they tried to stop the scare. There is another by-election now, and consequently the scare must be revived. That is why this Bill was introduced. I believe this Bill will be inoperative, that the sections in it which might claim to afford protection to jurymen will not be availed of, and that the Government do not want them to be availed of; but they are playing ducks and drakes with the legal system of the country for party purposes. They do not care one jot about the harm they do either to the machinery for the administration of the law or respect for the law amongst the people, provided they can snatch a few extra votes.

Again I ask Cumann na nGaedheal Deputies to realise that, if this Bill goes through, and if as a result there is chaos in the judicial system, and there is more than chaos existing outside the courts, they will be responsible. They will have the opportunity, if the Committee Stage takes its normal course, to remove any of the points of danger they may see in the Bill or which may be pointed out to them. If they vote for the motion they are depriving themselves of that right. They are the elected representatives of the people, and not elected to sit here as dummies to vote whatever way the Cumann na nGaedheal Whips tell them to vote. They were sent here to represent the interests of their constituents. Do they think it is in the interests of their constituents that a Bill of this kind should go through without discussion and proper opportunity for examination of the measure? If they do they are a poor type of representatives. Not merely is the Government proposing to prevent discussion on this measure but it is going further than it has ever gone before—it is going to stop amendment of this measure. Only amendments introduced by the Minister for Justice are to be put to the House. After six hours have elapsed the other Deputies are to be deprived of the rights guaranteed to them under the Constitution and the Standing Orders by a majority, a big, brutal, ignorant majority in this House.

There is given in other cases power, as I say, of kangaroo closure, where the Chair is allowed to jump over perhaps ten amendments into another amendment, where selected amendments which have behind them particular bodies of opinion in the House, as distinct from amendments which might have a general body, are marked out so that if there were, say, half a dozen Labour amendments there would be an assurance that some of these which were regarded as most significant by the Labour Party would be discussed. There is no such machinery here unless it is intended that the Minister for Justice is to go back and actually read the amendments by Deputy Ruttledge. That is conceivable. It is just conceivable that he may for a moment tremble on to sanity in this matter, go back through the amendments of Deputy Ruttledge and pick out of those the forty or fifty which are of importance, see that they are properly discussed and individually put to the House. But there is no provision whatever for him to go through and pick out any single one of these amendments. If for instance, you could get somebody who was recklessly disregardful of the time of the House, somebody who was really obstructive and skilfully determined to use his powers under the rules and who would make a strictly relevant speech for six hours—I mean any individual member upon any bench who is capable of making a strictly relevant speech for six hours on the first amendment: it has been done, as you know —he could cut out the whole of the rest of the discussion for the whole of the House. There is no provision whatever to deal with that. Pigs in a poke are publicly-exposed and intimately-photographed things compared with the details of this Bill as it will be approved of by this House.

Until the decision has been taken by the House to upset the whole principle of the Bill as introduced, nobody does know which resolutions and amendments are of critical significance. The Bill, as introduced, pretended—it is simply that dishonest sort of pretence which, frankly, we do not get from the Minister for Agriculture; we get a different kind of dishonest attempt at pretence from him—that the Minister for Justice, with far-seeing wisdom, examining into the details of the administration of justice in the Free State, had been dissatisfied with these details in relation to criminal trial, and that he and his associates sat down in careful conclave, getting the whole of the information which could be got and the opinions of everyone whom it did, in fact, concern and that he had evolved this perfect piece of new legislation permanently to deal, as an ordinary condition, with the whole state of the criminal law, in relation to trial by jury in this State. That was to cover every single sort of trial of criminals. He was disturbed by the present state of the criminal law. He calmly and consistently, as part of a scheme that was going to exist permanently, contrived this thing. Because—I think it was alleged in the paper—Deputy Tierney made a speech or for some other reason, he has discovered that it is better frankly to acknowledge that it had none of those origins and none of those purposes, that it was intended to be a temporary device to deal with a temporary condition in relation to a narrowly-specified body of people. Is that the Bill to which it was possible for us to draft amendments before that particular provision had been put into it by the Minister? What is to be the position if the House spends the time in discussing that significant amendment? The condition in respect of the texture of a tennis shirt—something you are going to wear in the hot weather, something you wear for momentary relief—is a very different thing from the house in which you are going to live.

This Bill, now changed from a temporary to a permanent condition, bears as much relation in respect to its previous condition and its future condition as the tennis shirt bears to the house. Yet we are told that we have agreed to buy a tennis shirt when, according to the Minister, we had been taking a lease of land for 999 years on which to build a whole system of criminal law. The one thing might be part of the whole judicial system of the country. It might concern this generation and five generations hence, because when you pass a thing permanently you are supposed, at least, to envisage it as permanent, and not to assume that the thing is merely for the moment. How are we going to pick out, and what machinery is there provided to enable us to pick out, the amendments which will be significant in one case and insignificant in the other? I might be prepared to drink a glass of whiskey. It is quite a different thing to put the tap of the whiskey barrel in my mouth and keep it permanently pouring there. The one may be a tonic; the other produces the condition which we are perfectly familiar with in relation to the administration of justice. Are we to regard this as a tonic, a medicine, a weapon or a food? Are we to regard it as a ribbon to decorate the Minister for Justice or the permanent uniform of the Ministry of Justice? If we are not even told that now, how can we frame or select out our amendments? Of course, I suppose it will all be the same in a thousand years. I believe this Bill is going to be as sterile, as useless, as incapable of operation for any useful purpose in this State as the Public Safety Bill, which the electorate killed in its birth. I believe the position in relation to the Public Safety Bill has been reproduced in relation to this Bill. They knew the Public Safety Bill, after they had passed it, and after the people had seen it, was bad. They knew it was a disgrace; they knew it was a calumny upon this country, but they had not the little miserable courage to destroy their own child.

They know now that this thing is bad. They know that it is purely and simply a conspiracy against the public peace. They know that it will be used, if it is used at all, for the lowest possible exploitation of party authority over party opponents in the name, or misname, of justice. They have already thrown away a thousand years’ possession. They already know it is a thing that cannot, with any respect to the State, permanently exist in the State. But they have not got the miserable little courage to get rid of the other eighteen months—or is it a year? In that time they shall have to clear the Augean stable. The Minister for Justice will be the only man in a position to treat the law with contempt. I think that long before this Bill disappears—and I believe it will disappear before even its limited term—this Government will be satisfied that the name of this Bill also will be written upon the political tombstone under which they will lie in the contempt of every decent and honourable man. I think it was the Minister for Defence, in relation to a Bill as important as a Constitution (Amendment) Bill, asked that we should pause, that we should examine, that we should consider, that we should use the weapon of delay for the purpose of allowing misunderstanding, misrepresentation, heats and other things of that kind to disappear; that in relation to matters which struck, not at the machinery, but at the basic foundation of the State, delay was immensely valuable perse; that the knowledge that a thing was done pausefully, the knowledge that a thing was done with consideration, that every possible implication of an act had been considered and weighed before that act took place was valuable. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings there sometimes cometh wisdom. Why not apply that principle to this Bill before we upset a system of trial which has some hundreds of years of sanction behind it, a system of trial which has been grossly and grievously mistreated, as we know, in this country in the past, but which, if not mistreated, but treated decently and kindly and with respect, has a great deal to be said for it? Why upset it in six hours?

Of course, there will be unlimited time for discussion elsewhere. In the really responsible hours, it may be some consolation to the House to know that when it passes from the survey of people who have merely gone through the electoral fire and goes into the hands of those who have been made pure and holy by a caucus, it will be properly considered and that possibly just as the amendments of the “Irish Times” are acceptable, because the independents might become independent, those amendments that come from that august body may be accepted even though they may not be allowed to be discussed in this House. If that be so, if the experience of the House was that they could hand on, without any sense of responsibility or security, to our friends up above the duties which they themselves ought to perform, there would be a lot to be said for dividing out the work. But has it been our experience that Bills of fundamental importance that call for all this assuagement of delay were delayed, that they were considered there in detail, that they were examined, that they were, for instance, changed from the permanency of the Public Safety Act in its first stage to its impermanency after a General Election—has that been our experience, or has our experience been that these gentlemen up above do what they have been told to do, that they take the precautions of passing around envelopes to see that nothing goes wrong in the procedure, that exactly as it comes from this House without the change of a word, a sentence or a comma, we can rely upon those good people to pass and send down to this House, with the maximum of celerity, any Bill which would have been passed by Arthur James Balfour, Greenwood, Spencer or a few others. What guarantee have we, when we have let it pass out of our hands that hands more responsible, more loving of the public peace of this country, will fondle and nurse it? Any?

When this nursling passes from the keeping of the House it passes into the possession of a majority at least as reckless, at least as disregardful of individual right, at least as disregardful of public policy as the majority who tell us that the rights of the minority, and the rights they are to expect are the minimum rights. Personally, I have no guarantee that the House could go against its own responsibility to carry out its own duties. If the only legislation which the Deputies opposite are prepared to pass, if the only consideration which the Deputies opposite are prepared to give to these amendments is the legislation with their feet, well at any rate their heads will be counted during the process, and that will be to the good. I have only dealt for a moment very rigorously and very strictly with the amendment itself. Afterwards it will be necessary for us to consider on somewhat broader lines the motion and its rejection. But nothing that has been said in the House, up to the present, nothing that a fairly fertile imagination on my part has been able to provide, has shown any reason whatever why this House should consent to have put in the main provisos which are put in here.

Nothing has been put forward to suggest that this new machinery for sterilising the responsibility of legislators in relation to legislation should be allowed to be introduced. Nothing has been shown which enables me, at any rate, to find a means afterwards of preventing the successors of this Government misusing the like machinery for the same purpose. I do hope there will come into the possession of it, in possession of the Government of this House, those who believe that the minority have something more than the barest allowance which the majority is unable to take from them. If that is the principle, and as long as those gentlemen opposite legislate in the country it is the principle, this proviso as added to this Bill is a great danger to security in the State, great danger to responsibility in legislation, and a radical blow to the use and value of this House as a legislative assembly.

To insert at the end of the section a new sub-section as follows: “All orders made under this section shall be laid on the Table of each House of the Oireachtas, and shall not be valid unless approved of by resolution of each House of the Oireachtas.”

Again, I contend that is simply to provide a safeguard and to guard against an abuse of the powers which it is proposed to confer on the Minister for Justice by Section 2 of the Bill. At any rate, I cannot see that, on the face of it, it can be held to be a vexatious amendment. I come now to amendment 9 to Section 3. I am passing over amendment 7 which stands in the name of Deputy Tomás O Conaill, because I do not think the Minister alleged that any amendment the Deputy put down was a vexatious one. The whole indictment has been lodged against the principal Opposition Party in this House whose particular duty it is to scrutinise with more than ordinary care proposals made for legislation. After all, it is the duty of the Opposition Party to criticise and, to obstruct if necessary, in order to ensure that due consideration will be given to every legislative proposal. When, therefore, we do take the trouble of going through a Bill section by section, and find in it any point that appears to us to be doubtful, we are quite within our rights, in dealing with it. We are not only within our rights, but would be lacking in the proper discharge of our duty, if we omitted to put down a reasoned amendment designed to clarify a point or issue which was doubtful. For that reason, therefore, when a Bill of the far-reaching importance of this measure is introduced, and in the circumstances in which this Bill has been introduced, it is almost, I believe, impossible that only a small number of amendments should be put down.

To get back, I am passing over, as I have said, amendment 7 which stands in the name of Deputy Tomás O Conaill because neither the Minister for Justice nor any member of the Executive Council has alleged, so far as I am aware, that the amendments standing in that Deputy’s name are vexatious or obstructive in any way. I come, therefore, to the amendment which proposes to delete sub-section (1) of Section 3. This sub-section states:

Now there is a big point of principle involved there as to whether the panel of jurors shall or shall not be a confidential official document to be withheld from the prisoner, his legal advisers and from the people of this State. I contend that an amendment to delete that section and to discuss that issue in detail, cannot be held to be, and should not be alleged to be, a vexatious or an obstructive amendment.

To my mind, there is nothing more important for a young State than to be careful of its legislation. There was a book recently published by a distinguished judge in the Saorstát examining the tendencies of Saorstát legislation. I think he comes to the conclusion or, at least, indicates that there is a great tendency towards bureaucracy, that State control is a feature of all the legislation passed through the House. I think if he adds a new chapter after this Bill has gone through and, particularly, if he takes account of the way it is passed, he will find that the State is omnipotent. He will be able to say that there is no longer any doubt about that being the tendency, that the State, meaning the Executive Council, is now everything and that the common people count for nothing. The Minister for Justice in making a case also placed himself on a pedestal. He asked: “Why discuss questions like majority verdicts?”“That is a great improvement,” he says. He has already made up his mind that we are to accept his opinion that that is a great improvement in the measure. He said that when the Censorship of Publications Bill was before the House it was discussed by Deputies on these benches in a sensible way. Apparently we are not going to discuss this measure, a much more important measure than the Censorship of Publications Bill, in a reasonable way and he is not going to give us a chance of discussing it. The logic is the most amazing I have ever heard and the proposal is the most amazing proposal. It is a very dangerous proposal and it is one, in my opinion, the Dáil will always regret having acceded to.

This content was originally published here.

from Tumblr https://ift.tt/bOnCVU6
via IFTTT