Reports of the Society for the Amendment of the Law. 283

life. Thus four elements concur in giving the impulse to civilisation, namely, religion, marriage, the institution of asylums, and the first agrarian law.1

ART. III. REPORTS OF THE SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING THE AMENDMENT OF THE LAW.

MINISTER OF JUSTICE.

Ir having been referred to your Committee to consider the expediency of establishing a minister of justice, they have directed their attention, first, to the question whether or not any necessity exists in this country for the functions of such an officer; and, secondly, to the consideration in whose hands, if any, those functions ought to be placed.

I. THE NECESSITY FOR A MINISTER OF JUSTICE.

Your Committee may observe, at the outset of this Report, that the establishment of such an office as that of a ministry of justice would not create new functions so much as it would centralise in one department many existing duties now scattered through various sections of State offices. It appears incontestable that every distinct branch of the business entrusted to the executive should be represented by a different official, and be transacted in a separate office. It would be no more unreasonable and no more inconvenient to compel any department of State to pay all the officials directly or indirectly connected with its routine of business, than it is to oblige the same department to administer, in respect to these same officials, a portion of our judicial system. For instance, there would be just as much reason for burdening the Home Office with the discharge of the salaries of stipendiary magistrates, as there is for attaching to that office the

Scienza Nuova, lib. ii., Works, vol. v. p. 361.

responsibility of revising and correcting these same magistrates' decisions. Just as we have concentrated the duties of national finance in the hands of the Treasury, and placed our public commercial interests under the control of the Board of Trade, so it would appear to your Committee, all the duties connected with the supreme administration of justice ought to be discharged by one single authority.

Practically, however, even its lower functions are scattered through a variety of departments of State, and in a way that makes it sometimes difficult to define the exact limits of the authority exercised by each. To collect these scattered duties in one uniform system under a common hand, would seem to be one of the greatest improvements that could be introduced into the practical working of our administrative system; and your Committee have to notice, as the first cogent reason for establishing a Minister of Justice,

(1.) The Necessity of some recognised Official to conduct the Administrative Parts of our Judicial System.

Under these may be classed the exercise of the office of public prosecutor, which seems not to be vested at present in any particular department, though the Treasury, through its solicitor, generally acts in this capacity. The Home Office, however, the Board of Trade, the Post Office, the Mint, the Customs, the Excise, the Admiralty, and other departments, occasionally direct prosecutions; while in many cases there can be no question that the interests of justice are defeated by the want of any recognised officer to bring a suspected criminal to trial. In some of these the persons injured may be unable, and in others may be afraid, to bring the wrong-doer to a public trial; and there have been instances where the morality of the nation has suffered from the impunity afforded to transactions which, whether really criminal or not, demanded investigation before an adequate tribunal. The expediency of establishing some such officer has been so often admitted, that your Committee do not feel it necessary to dwell at any length on this part of the subject; but they would observe, that it would be convenient to

vest in any office entrusted with the duty of public prosecutions the analogous power of information and quo warranto vested in the Attorney-General. Under this head may be also classed the royal prerogative of pardon, and the power of remitting or diminishing the punishment of crime,—a function at present discharged by the Home Secretary. It seems to your Committee that such a duty would be far more fitly entrusted to a Minister of Justice than to a Secretary of State, whose other employments bear no necessary relation to such an office. And connected with this subject is that of the superintendence of gaols, and the general regulation of our penal system, now likely, from the discontinuance of transportation, to assume a far more onerous form than heretofore. This portion of the administration of justice is, either directly or indirectly, vested in the Home Secretary, who in some cases directly controls the arrangement of prison discipline, and in others exercises a partial superintendence through the inspectors of prisons. Here, again, your Committee would suggest, that a Minister of Justice is the proper functionary to be charged with the supreme management; and should reformatory institutions for juvenile delinquents be established, as it is to be hoped they will, by an act of the Legislature, the amount of supervision, if any, reserved for the Government, ought to be delegated to the same hands.

(2.) The Necessity for some recognised Official to control Magistrates, and regulate our Judicial Establishments.

There is nothing that tends more to the efficient organisation of any department than the establishment of one common centre from which all orders proceed, and under whose supervision all duties are carried out At the same time, there is no portion of our civil service which so demands a separate head for its control as the department of justice; because there is none so distinct in its nature, and so important to the interests of the community. Nothing can be more necessary than that the system to which are entrusted the lives, liberties, characters, and properties of all, should work

smoothly and effectively, and that a prompt remedy should be applied to any obstructions that may arise within it. Yet the question quis custodiet ipsos custodes is often asked in vain as to many of our inferior judges, whose decisions are unchecked by the safeguards that are found in our Superior Courts, in a vigilant press, and an independent Bar.

It is true that nominally an appeal is open to every one from the unjust sentence, or oppressive proceedings, of any of our judicial officers. But the process is often expensive, cumbrous, and dilatory, and is calculated to deter, rather than invite, inquiry. Moreover there are cases in which, without the exercise on his part of any injustice or oppression, and in cases where there can be no appeal, it is desirable that the conduct of a judge should be investigated. He may be found incompetent for his business, or he may neglect his duties, or some mental defect may render him obnoxious to the public. In such cases as these it would be most desirable to have the conduct of the judicial officer in question calmly and, if expedient, privately reviewed by some superior authority, who should have in his hands the power both of reprimand and of dismissal.

As far as unpaid and stipendiary magistrates are concerned, this desirable system of control is at the present time vested in more hands than one, and is most imperfectly carried out. The Lord Chancellor has the power of removing unpaid magistrates for incapacity or improper conduct, aud occasionally exercises the prerogative. The police magistrates are more directly under the control of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, to whom all complaints are addressed, and who occasionally remits their sentences. It appears to your committee that the Home Department is not the proper office to be invested with judicial functions, and to be endued with what virtually amounts to the power of an appellate court; and they conceive that an interference with a magistrate's decision ought to proceed only from a properly qualified Minister of Justice, fitted by his education and professional experience to weigh evidence and adjudicate on conflicting facts. They moreover submit to this Society, that to make any distinction in the matter of appeal between unpaid and

stipendiary magistrates is incongruous, and even mischievous, since it must tend to prevent uniformity in decisions. A concentration of this function in the hands of an official to whom the country might look for the exercise of a proper control over subordinate magistrates would be, in the opinion of your Committee, a great boon to public justice. It would probably, in the event of the appointment of a Minister of Justice, be found expedient to vest in his hands the sole nomination to magisterial appointments. Your Committee conceive that in the same hands should be placed the power of reviewing, modifying, and annulling the sentences passed on criminals by the county magistrates in Quarter Sessions and the Recorders of boroughs. Appeals are indeed made to the Court of Criminal Appeal, but these are only on points of law reserved by the Chairman or Recorder, and any impropriety in the sentence can be remedied only by the Secretary of State.

An example has recently occurred in which a sentence has been mitigated by the Home Secretary on a representation made to him of the case; but here again your Committee would observe that this functionary is not the proper one to exercise such a power Moreover at present there is no means of administering a rebuke to the individual by whom a cruel or unjust sentence is passed, a pardon or a mitigation of punishment being the only feasible mode of rectifying the injustice.

Passing to another portion of our judicature, your Committee remark that the supervision over County Courts is confided, as far as any effective supervision exists, to the Lord Chancellor, with the exception of the Court in the duchy of Lancaster, which is under the control of the Chancellor of that duchy. The latter official is not necessarily a person of legal attainments; and it would be desirable to place the Courts in the duchy on the same footing as those in the other parts of the kingdom. Your Committee conceive that all our County Courts should be under the immediate control of a Minister of Justice, having for his local assistants the Treasurers of the Courts, who should be independent and able functionaries.