In case jurors cannot be found. Sheriff to deliver panel 177. If any of such persons cannot be found, the Sheriff shall obtain so many additional names,drawn in the aforesaid manner, as may be necessary to make up the jurors to the proper number, and shall issue summonses to such persons in like manner. 178. The Sheriff shall cause to be delivered to the to registrar. Registrar a panel containing the names, occupations, and places of abode of the persons so summoned. If assizes at a place for which no jurors' list. Penalty on jurors not attending. Punishment summary: How enforced. Court may remit fines. Notice to persons fined in absence. 179. If assizes shall be held at any place for which a jurors' list may not have been prepared under this Ordinance, the Sheriff or Registrar may prepare a temporary jurors' list for the purposes of such assizes, and all the provisions of this Ordinance shall, so far as applicable, apply in the case of the persons whose names are entered, whether as common jurors or as special jurors and Assessors upon such temporary list. 180. Any person summoned to attend the Court as a juror or Assessor who shall not, without reasonable excuse (the burthen of proof whereof shall rest on such juror or Assessor), duly attend and be present at the Court, and at all times appointed by the Court for adjournments, and any person present in Court who being called to serve as a juror, shall, without reasonable excuse, refuse so to serve till discharged by the Court, shall be liable to a fine which may extend to twentyfive pounds. 181. Such punishment may be inflicted summarily on an order to that effect by the Court, and any fine imposed shall be recoverable by distress and sale of the moveable and immoveable property of the person fined, by warrant of distress to be signed by the Registrar of the Court, which warrant shall be issued by the Registrar, without further order of the Court, if the amount of fine is not paid within six days of being imposed, if imposed in the presence of the person fined, or within six days of its having come to his knowledge by notice or otherwise that the fine has been imposed, if imposed in his absence. default of the recovery of the fine by such distress and sale, the person fined may be imprisoned for the space of twentyone days, if the fine be not sooner paid: provided always that it shall be lawful for the Court, if it shall deem fit, to remit any fine so imposed. In 182. In cases where any person is so fined in his absence the Registrar shall forthwith send him a written notice of the fact, requiring him to pay the fine, or to show cause before the Court within four days for not paying the same. exempt 183. Nothing herein contained shall prevent the Court Court may from exempting any person from serving as a juror or Assessor persons from at any assizes, or on any trial for reasonable cause; a certifi- serving. cate bearing the signature of any medical officer in Her Majesty's Naval, Military, or Colonial Service, or of any qualified physician or surgeon practising as such within the jurisdiction of the Court, setting out that any person required to attend as a juror or Assessor is unable from the state of his health to do so, may, on the Court being satisfied of the signature to such certificate, be received as primâ facie evidence of reasonable cause. required to 184. All persons declared liable to serve as jurors are Jurors liable, when lawfully so required to serve as jurors on any serve also Coroner's inquest, as well as at any assizes of the Supreme upon coroners' Court, within the District for which they shall have been inquests. appointed. lists. 185. Until lists are formed under this Ordinance the Present existing jurors' lists may be used as if they had been so formed. PART VII.-INQUESTS ON DECEASED PERSONS. GENERAL PROVISIONS. inquests to be 186. Every Coroner shall hold an inquest on view of the Casos in body of any deceased person within his District, whenever it which shall appear to him that there is reason to believe that such beld. deceased person died suddenly or from violence or unfair means, or by culpable or negligent conduct, either of himself or others, and also whenever the Coroner considers that the circumstances relating to any death require investigation. 187. Whenever any prisoner, or any person confined in any lunatic asylum, shall die from whatsoever cause, the Coroner of the District shall invariably hold an inquest. No officer of any prison or lunatic asylum nor any prisoner shall be a juror on such inquest. Inquests on all prisoners lunatics in asylums. and on Inquests to be held by coroner of place where 188. The Coroner only within whose jurisdiction the body of any person shall be, upon whose death an inquest ought to be holden, shall hold the inquest, notwithstanding that the cause of death arose elsewhere: and if anybody is found in body lying. the sea, or in any river, creek, or navigable canal within the flowing of the sea, or in any inland waters, the inquest shall Powers of commitment, &c. Coroner may postpone burial till be held by the Coroner within whose jurisdiction the body is first brought to land. 189. If any person is charged with the murder or manslaughter of such person, as principal or accessory, the Coroner holding the inquest and the Court for the Province in which it is held, shall have the same powers for the commitment, trial, and execution of the sentence of any person so charged as they would have had if the cause of death had arisen within the said Province and the District of the said Coroner. 190. The Coroner may prohibit the burial of any body in his District until an inquest shall have been held. An inquest after inquest. may lawfully be held, and every act in relation to the holding of inquests shall be lawfully done, on any Sunday or holiday. POST-MORTEM EXAMINATIONS. 191. If any Coroner considers it necessary, with a view to investigating the circumstances of the death of any person, to obtain a medical report of the appearances of the body, and as to the conclusions to be drawn therefrom, he may direct any duly qualified medical practitioner resident in his District to make a post-mortem examination of the body and to report: provided that no such practitioner shall be required to travel for such purpose to any greater distance than three miles from the place of his residence for the time being. 192. Every medical practitioner so directed shall (unless he immediately procures the services of some other medical practitioner to perform the duty), immediately upon the receipt of such direction, proceed to the place where the dead body shall be, and shall make a post-mortem examination thereof, with a view to determine therefrom the cause of the death, and to throw all the light upon the circumstances con. nected with the death that such an examination can supply, and shall report in writing to the Coroner stating the appearances of the body, and the conclusions which he draws therefrom touching the death of such person. The examination shall extend, when the medical practitioner considers it necessary. but not otherwise, to such dissection of the body as he thinks requisite. Such report shall be prima facie evidence of the facts therein stated. 193. Every medical practitioner,* whether in Government employment or not, shall be entitled, for services connected Amended by No. 7 of 1879. with inquests, to the remuneration stated in the Appendix B of the Supreme Court Ordinance. PROCEDURE AT THE INQUEST. How 194. The jury upon any inquest shall consist of twelve, Composition or any lesser number not being less than five, persons, who of jury: may be taken from the jurors' list for the District, or be summoned persons dwelling near the place where the inquest is held, though not on the list. Every juror shall be sufficiently summoned, if he be required verbally to attend by the officer executing the summons, and the summons be shown to him; the officer shall endorse a memorandum on the back of the summons stating the place and time of service. failure to serve. 195. If any person so summoned fails to attend and serve Penalty on as a juror, he shall incur the like penalty as a juror summoned and failing to attend and serve at any assizes. 196. Before any evidence is taken every juror shall take Juror's oath an oath, which may be in the following form : You shall well and truly try and inquire for and on behalf of our Sovereign Lady the Queen, when, how, and by what means A. B. [or a certain person whose name is unknown], of whose body you shall have the view, came to his death, and a true verdict give according to the evidence; So help you God. 197. The Coroner may adjourn any inquest to a future Adjournhour or day, and to the same or another place, as may be ment. necessary, taking the recognizances of the jurors to attend at the time and place appointed, and notifying to the witnesses when and where the inquest will be proceeded with. 198. The depositions of every witness shall be taken in writing by the Coroner, in the same manner, as nearly as may be, as the depositions in the investigation of any charge preliminary to trial on information. Coroner to take depositions of witnesses. 199. When all the evidence offered, or which can be How verdict obtained, is closed, the Coroner shall sum up the evidence and taken. take the verdict of the jury. The verdict, which may be that of a majority of the jurors present, shall then and there be reduced to writing, and signed by the jurors and countersigned by the Coroner. RESPECTING ACCUSED PERSONS. 200. If it appears to the Coroner, from any charge made previous to the inquest, or from the evidence of any witness Q Coroner may to arrest any issue warrant suspected person. Proceedings upon person. thereon, that there is reason to suspect any person of being guilty respecting the death of the deceased, or if a verdict of murder or manslaughter, or as accessory to murder, be found against any person, the Coroner shall issue his warrant for the arrest of such person, and for bringing him before the Coroner and jury, or before the Coroner in case the inquest shall have terminated. 201. Upon such person being brought before the Coroner, or the Coroner and jury,if the inquest shall not have terminated, apprehension of accused the witnesses who shall have given evidence shall be reexamined in presence of the accused person, so far as their statements are material, and may be cross-examined by the accused, and the procedure shall be the same in all respects touching the examination of the witnesses, the interrogation of the accused by the Coroner, and the calling and examination of witnesses on behalf of the accused if he so desires, and the binding the witnesses by recognizance and otherwise, as in any other case of a person being charged with an offence which may be tried upon information. Coroner to commit accused for trial or not, according to his own judgment. Return of 202. Whatever verdict may be returned by the jury, the Coroner shall commit any accused person for trial or discharge him, according to his own deliberate judgment, whether in conformity with the verdict or not, recording briefly on the minutes in the latter case the reasons of his decision; and such commitment or discharge shall have the like effect and be subject to the like incidents in all respects as any other case of the commitment or discharge of an accused person upon investigation of the charge. 203. Every inquisition, including the depositions and the inquisitions. statement of the accused, and the recognizances of witnesses, if any, shall be transmitted by the Coroner, with all convenient despatch, to the Supreme Court, and in case a verdict shall have been found against any person, or any person shall have been committed for trial, an authenticated copy of the inquisition, depositions and statements of the accused, shall be transmitted to the Queen's Advocate. This printed impression has been carefully compared by me with the Bill which has passed the Legislative Council, and found to be a true and correct copy of the said Bill. ALFRED MOLONEY, |