Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/629

 JURIES. MAGISTRATES AND THE CHIEF JUSTICE. 601 many years his talents made him the most distinguished member. Governor Darling's new Council passed a General and Quarter Sessions Act (29th Sept. 1829), which enacted that " free persons" should be tried "before the Courts of General and Quarter Sessions, and seven commissioned ofl5cers of His Majesty's sea and land forces,'' in like manner to that prescribed in the Imperial Act for the Supreme Court. ^ By sec. 5 of that Act (9 Geo. IV. cap. 83), it was provided that, until other order might be taken, military or naval officers should be the jurors, and in default of the requisite number, seven, the Governor should nominate magistrates to act as jurymen. Thus the emancipist element was ^ntu-ely excluded from juries at the Quarter Sessions Courts. The local legislature had power to pass jury laws, but the application of juries, even in the Supreme Court, was limited by the Imperial Act to cases in which "either of the parties" in an action might be desirous of having issues of fact tried by a jury constituted under any colonial law or ordinance. The Court, moreover, had power to Award or to refuse trial by jury. The Supreme Court was <5omposed of one or more judges and two assessors (magis- trates). In all criminal trials the juries were military. If the emancipist party desired to open the door of admission to juries they were compelled to work in the direction of so framing the local jury laws as to serve their purposes. Their hopes rested on the Chief Justice. During the dis- cussion of the Jury Bill, Archdeacon Broughton became a member of the Council (16th Sept.) The Chief Justice was active in modelling the measure. It was referred to a sub- committee (24th Sept.), and was passed (9th Oct.) It provided (sec. 4) that in all actions wherein the Court should award trial by jury, jurors should be residents in or within twenty-two miles from Sydney, having a clear income from real estate of i930, or from personal estate of £300; and that **no man not being a natural-born subject of the king, and no man who hath been or shall be attainted of any treason or felony, or convicted of any crime that is infamous (unless he shall have received for such crime a pardon, or shall be within the benefit of some Act of Parliament, having the force and effect of a. ij^^dftw xssjAssl