022 - Hunter Valley Manuscript - July 1833

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Description(022.jpg) Verso are excluded from practicing in the court, and consequently no close scrutiny is made of the evidence adduced - and a confident hearing will invariably cover the grossest perjury where the witness does not undergo the ordeal of a cross examination - In the Supreme Court all civil cases except upon special application to the court, are decided by two assessors, who in fact are the jury - This system in many instances has opened a door to the greatest injustice - friends of the litigant parties have been known to attend as assessors and even where this palpable evil does not exist in a circumscribed society such as Sydney now presents, the merits of every case to be tried are canvassed in public and although the assessor may not be altogether a partisan he must necessarily go into court with a biass on his mind, which it is not easy to obliterate - The assessors are taken chiefly from the merchants of Sydney who from their connexions with the business part of the community are the most unlikely to give a fair and impartial verdict - [Juries] when such are granted by the Courts are taken from the body of the country - Merchants and settlers equally, and although the system is as yet but in embryo it works well - Trial by jury has long been most strenuously sought by the country and promised by the home Government but from some strange misapprehension of the state of the Country and its capabilities, the boon of trial by jury is [doled] out piecemeal, and the Mother country seems to forget that by keeping SubjectNSWHunter ValleySettlerNew South Wales historyNSW historyAustralian historyMaitlandNew South WalesAustraliaDatenot specifiedSourcehttps://www.flickr.com/photos/uon/2665504523/

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