Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/630
the Great Seal for such crime), shall be qualified to serve
on any such jury." In construing this clause the magistrates excluded all emancipists who had not received a full
royal pardon. The emancipist class fumed when they saw
that no man who had been convicted was summoned. An
order was applied for, calling on the sheriff to show cause
against a mandamus to compel him to insert the names of
certain emancipists. Wentworth and Wardell argued for
the mandamus, against the Solicitor-General on the other
side. The application was dismissed on the ground of
irregularity, but the Chief Justice allowed it to be made
known that, in his opinion, the magistrates were wrong in
excluding from the lists persons whose terms of sentence
had expired.
It may be mentioned, parenthetically, that in 1880 Governor Darling invited the Council to consider the propriety of introducing generally trial by jury. The Secretary of State wished for their opinions, and Darling was not indisposed to introduce trial by jury. The Council passed an amending bill. There were two dissentients, but the majority would not consent to delay. Disqualifying everyone who had undergone a colonial or second conviction of "treason, felony, or other infamous offence," the bill left all others whose sentences had expired, or who had received full pardons, eligible as jurors. When the magistrates excluded the names of all whose sentences had expired, the Governor had ascertained the opinion of Forbes that persons who had "served their terms of transportation" were eligible as jurors. The opinion was, with important exceptions, confirmed by three judges (Forbes, Dowling, and Burton) who were asked by Governor Bourke in 1884, at the unanimous request of the Legislative Council, "whether a person who has been convicted of a transportable offence, and whose sentence has expired, or been remitted by an absolute or conditional pardon, is legally qualified to sit upon a jury in England." The careful reply which was then furnished was dictated by no political feeling. It analyzed the various enactments in force by the dry light of reason. Free pardons, or a conditional pardon of which the condition had been performed,—servitude of punishment inflicted on a person convicted of