Mr Jeffrey Thomas: I stood up.
Mr Jeffrey Thomas: Without being offensive, may I suggest that, if my right hon. and learned Friend had had more experience of addressing juries in the last 20 years, his advice to the House would carry more weight? At present, a case is being heard at the Central Criminal Court. The members of the jury are being guarded night and day. Because of the strain of the trial, one member of the jury has had a heart...
Mr Jeffrey Thomas: The hon. Gentleman is aware of the old legal maxim, de minimis non curat lex—the law does not take account of small matters. He is equally aware that when jurors talk to their children or families there is no possibility of a prosecution being brought against them.
Mr Jeffrey Thomas: Would the hon. Gentleman care to deal not simply with the views and the speech of Lord Hutchinson, but with the speech of Lord Edmund-Davies, which could hardly be described as hysterical or of a taproom variety, and with that of the Lord Chief Justice? Is not the point about research, which was touched on when we last met in the House on this matter, the one made by the learned...
Mr Jeffrey Thomas: Does the Solicitor-General agree that that is one of very many distressing cases connected with so-called shoplifting charges? Will he arrange to meet the Home Secretary at the earliest moment to discuss the report of his advisory committee that has been looking; into cases of shoplifting for many months?
Mr Jeffrey Thomas: I listened with great interest to the Attorney-General. So far as I understand his amendment, it seems to me wholly unnecessary. The present statement of the law, to quote from Lord Devlin, is as follows: Jurymen are invested now with judicial immunity. They have full judicial privilege and are not accountable for any thing said or done in the discharge of their office and any threats or...
Mr Jeffrey Thomas: I do not believe that the amendment has that effect. I do not want to trespass on the next amendments to the clause. Most of the points will be best dealt with in debate on those amendments. The point which the Attorney-General made, about reading accounts given by two jurors on the New Statesman case and not for one moment thinking that they were talking about the same clause, is precisely...
Mr Jeffrey Thomas: Having regard to what the Lord Chief Justice had said, and bearing those views in mind, would it not be better to adopt the course that we sought to adopt in Committee and expunge that part of clause 9 altogether, hook, line and sinker?
Mr Jeffrey Thomas: I agree with everything that the hon. and learned Member for South Fylde (Mr. Gardner) said in support of his amendment. It is for that very reason that we contend that his amendment does not go far enough, especially bearing in mind what the Lord Chief Justice had to say. One cannot venture to imagine stronger language than that used by the Lord Chief Justice in the quotation read to the...
Mr Jeffrey Thomas: We dealt with it when the hon. Gentleman was out of the Chamber, but I shall come to the question of retrial, which is an important matter in the argument. I hope that I shall not detain the House for too long, but I, too, feel extremely strongly about the matter, which is a major constitutional issue, so I hope that the House will forgive me if I take a little time in developing my...
Mr Jeffrey Thomas: Would my hon. Friend agree that democracy has also lasted for centuries but that it is a fragile flower which has to be constantly and carefully tended?
Mr Jeffrey Thomas: My hon. Friend will be pleased to hear that on a vote taken in Committee the Government were defeated.
Mr Jeffrey Thomas: Surely the reality is that the Attorney-General would never give his consent, which is required under the amendment, to cases as trivial as discussions over a glass of sherry and so on.
Mr Jeffrey Thomas: I endorse what the Solicitor-General said about the Law Commissioners. I am sure that my hon. Friends will wish to join him in thanking them for the extremely arduous tasks which they undertake. One of the 119 Acts which are being repealed by this measure is the infamous Unlawful Oaths Act under which the Tolpuddle martyrs were convicted. It is ironic that it falls to the Conservative Party...
Mr Jeffrey Thomas: This has been a short but highly interesting debate. I venture the hope that I shall be brief, but I cannot promise to be interesting. That does not mean that the Bill is not an interesting and important measure. Some of us would go further and say that it is a measure of great importance and is far from being what the Lord Chancellor described as a Bill without political interest or...
Mr Jeffrey Thomas: I mean no disrespect to the circuit bench, but, in a sentence, it is the difference between Woolworths and Harrods. I hope that I can pass on from that contentious matter to consider the Bill not in detail, but generally. I promised to be brief, and I hope that I can keep that pledge. Our civil procedure has remained mainly unchanged since the days of Queen Victoria. There is no doubt that...
Mr Jeffrey Thomas: They are dealing with the liberty of the subject. The men and women concerned may have been in custody for many months awaiting the determination of their appeal or application for leave to appeal against sentence. It would be a greater safeguard, and would save time in some instances, if we were to avoid the procedure of going to the full court of three, to have a lord justice of appeal...
Mr Jeffrey Thomas: Is the hon. and learned Gentleman advocating that what is proposed in the Bill for civil cases should apply also to criminal trials?
Mr Jeffrey Thomas: Does not the Attorney-General agree that the case raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Price) does not lie easily within the parameters that the right hon. and learned Gentleman indicated a moment or two ago? Does not he agree that there is widespread disquiet and that the matter of chief public concern is that there appears to be a clear violation of the doctrine of...
Mr Jeffrey Thomas: As shoplifting is now a national disease affecting people from all walks of life—indeed, it is almost a national pastime—will the Solicitor-General suggest to the Home Secretary that a new working party be set up to finalise proposals about bag parks and to consider, among other things, ways in which retailers should protect their goods on display?
