Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 25.pdf/48

 The Editor's Bag any legislation that England may choose to adopt. The attitude of the three dissenting commissioners, Sir William Anson, the Archbishop of York, and Sir Lewis Dibdin, who oppose any extension of the present grounds of divorce, is remarkable and probably will have little effect upon the action of Parliament. The proposal that permanent separa tion be abolished and divorce substituted in its place will be commended as in the interest of morality. Courts are still to be allowed to issue temporary separation and maintenance orders, in cases of drunkenness and cruelty, but the secur ing of what is de facto a divorce but by legal fiction not a divorce is to be made impossible. One of the chief evils which the Com mission was formed to redress was that of the inaccessibility of the divorce court to poor people. The majority report accordingly recommends, in ad dition to local sittings of the High Court, making the journey to London unneces sary in the case of the poor, and in addi tion to the cheapened procedure in the local sessions, a thorough system of legal aid to the poor which grants every facility for proceedings in forma pauperis where the applicant can show a proper prima facie case. The Law Times is opposed, we think with good ground, to the recommenda tions regarding the local administration of the divorce law. It finds fault with the proposed exclusion of all but the poor from the local sittings of the court, and favors one uniform system for the whole realm, making it possible for any one, rich or poor, to sue for divorce either in London or at selected centres. It 'would also have the local sessions of the High Court presided over not by com missioners, but by High Court judges, who are better fitted by training and experience to discharge the functions

39

of a divorce tribunal. Lest such a system be more expensive to the litigant than one involving proceedings before commissioners only, the Law Times urges that the fees, costs, and procedure of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty division be so revised as to be available to all who desire to avail themselves of the opportunities of the new system. We have previously expressed our dis approval of secret divorce proceedings (22 G. B. 45) and our commendation of that section of the Uniform Divorce Act which directs that all divorce proceedings shall be public. The majority report would allow a judge, at his discretion, to hold proceedings in camera when he considers that the evidence is unsuitable for publication in the interests of decency or morality. The minority report con curs in the recommendation. No mem ber of the Commission would abolish the "inherent jurisdiction" of hearing cases in camera. Mr. J. A. Spender, how ever, would restrict the privilege to prevent its abuse merely in the interest of parties who desire secrecy, and sug gests legislation regulating newspaper reports. He would forbid reports in the public press till a case is concluded, in order to overcome the evil of long and detailed accounts running from day to day with sensational incidents. He believes that by such precautions the community would reap the moral advan tage of a wholesome publicity. We cannot see how regulation of press publi cations would not answer every objection which might be based on considerations of decency, and how this would not completely remove every justification for proceedings in camera. The some what analogous case of the law of news paper contempt, which is so much more effectively enforced in England than in our own country, affords some ground for the feeling that the success of this