18 DECEMBER 1841, Page 11

IRISH JUSTICES : HOLDING TO BAIL.

IN so far as a man's character is concerned, ordering him to find bail is equivalent to committing him for trial. It is a declaration on the part of the officiating Magistrate that there are sufficient grounds of suspicion against him to warrant his being sent before a Jury. It also subjects him to trouble, expense, and vexation of mind.

To a person not acquainted with the judicial procedure of this country, it would seem that a Magistrate ought to make some in- quiry before he attached such a stigma to any person—to examine whether there was cause for suspicion, before he declared a man a suspicious character. It would appear, however, that this is not the case—at least not in Ireland.

An application was made about a week ago to the Magistrates of the Petty Sessions of Mountmeliek to receive information against Mr. WILLIAM CONNOR, a landholder in the neighbourhood, for se- dition. After the witnesses for the information had been heard-

" Mr. Connor asked permission to have his own witnesses examined. Cap- tain Tibaudo objected, on the part of the Bench, to go into his evidence, as the Magistrates were not going to try the case; they were only acting magis- terially, and thought that Connor should reserve his evidence for the Assizes."

The Magistrates were not, it is true, going to try the case ; but they were examining whether the accusation was of sufficient im- portance, or sufficiently probable, to render it worth while to have it tried. Mr. CONNOR'S witnesses might have been able to prove that, from the position of the witnesses for the information, they could not have heard what they reported ; or might have thrown such light upon other matters as would have shown the accusation to be frivolous and vexatious, and thus induced the Magistrates to dismiss it. The object of the preliminary investigation before Magistrates—if it has any object—is to protect honest men as much as possible from being put to the trouble and expense of legal proceedings at the instigation of malicious and corrupt in- formers. The party informed against ought to have an opportunity of showing by witnesses the character of the charge brought against him.

It is to be desired that this Mountmelick case should attract attention ; for various reasons, but more especially because it is in danger of being converted into a mere party grievance. It is by no means impossible that the conflicting political feelings of the Ma- gistrates and the party accused may have had their effect upon the decision ; and if so, it is just that they should be exposed to public obloquy, if no other punishment can be inflicted upon them. But there is a risk that this view of the question, by inlisting par- tisan enmities in the discussion, may lead all parties to overlook the defects indicated by the decision in question as existing both in the law and the tribunals appointed to administer it.

In respect to the tribunals, the same error committed by the Justices of Mountmelick has been more than once committed of late by English Justices. The cause of their mistake is obvious. Some Justices have been in the habit of making the preliminary inquiry regarding the informations a regular inquiry into the merits of the case. The absurdity of this practice having struck other Magistrates, they, in their anxiety to avoid Scylla, have run into Charybdis. Not content with refusing to enter into the merits of the case, they have declined to discharge their task of inquiring whether there were probable grounds of prosecution. The source of both errors is the incompetency of the Magistrates : and so long as investigations of this kind are intrusted to men not educated-to the business, and shielded by legislative enactments from responsibility on the plea of their gratuitously-discharged functions, so long will similar oppressive blunders be committed. The remedy consists in superseding Justices of the Peace by salaried Police Magistrates, and establishing a form of procedure by which any of these Ma- gistrates, guilty of oppressive and illegal conduct, may be prose- cuted with a view to his deposition or further punishment. The second clause of the proposed remedy leads back, by a natural association, to the defects in the law, hinted at above as one cause of magisterial blunders. The law regarding many crimes is so vague and uncertain, that even professional judges might find difficulty in administering it without error. And of all departments of the penal law, the law regarding sedition is the most fluctuating and obscure. The startling doctrine laid down by a recent legal authority in Scotland, that the crime of sedition con- sists "not so much in what is said as the time at which it is said," is rather odious than false. Sedition is not a crime defined by law, but a crime created for the nonce by the feelings of the judge. It depends almost entirely upon the political predilections of the persons sitting in judgment—or the greater or less degree to which they are alarmists—whether a speech shall be classed under the category of sedition or not. Ministers profess to desire to rule Ireland upon fair and mode- rate principles. They know (the Premier by personal experience) the fierce sectarian spirit of the old Magistracy of Ireland. They must see, in the handle already made of the case of Mr. CONNOR, the twofold danger they run from the indiscretion of their own partisans on the one hand, and on the other the readiness of their opponents to denounce them as the original instigators of that indiscretion. There is only one way to keep themselves free from such suspicion, and at the same time to avoid giving personal offence where it might be inconvenient to give it ; and that is, by im- proving the penal law, and giving the country better tribunals for its administration.