Recognition Dispute As A “Trade Dispute”
| Date | 01 May 1960 |
| Published date | 01 May 1960 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1960.tb00603.x |
| Author | C. Grunfeld |
MAY
1960
NOTES
OF
CASES
807
that the statement did obvious disservice to the cause of justice,
one can at the same time express some sympathy
for
a judge of
remarkably liberal reputation whose patience was, apparently,
sorely tested by
a
singularly difficult jury. Although delay is part
of the price paid for the jury system and particular allowance has
always
to
be made in this country for the requirement of a
unanimous verdict, the jury in
McKenna’s
case appears from the
report
to
have been extraordinarily slow. Whilst this is hardly a
justification for the learned judge’s statement,
it
does represent
a mitigating factor to which the Court of Criminal Appeal rightly
gave some prominence.
Although there is little recent authority
on
the point, and the
court, indeed, appears to have cited
no
authority
in
its judgment,
it has long been accepted that a jury must reach its decision free
from coercion,
(‘
uninfluenced by any promise, unintimidated by
any threat.” To threaten a jury with hours
of
personal incon-
venience and discomfort is an obvious denial of that freedom and,
in the circumstances, the Court of Criminal Appeal was bound to
quash the convictions: the jury had given
no
indication that
it
was
agreed about the guilt
of
two of the three accused whose defences
might, perhaps, have appeared
(‘
fanciful
”
to a lawyer. The court,
therefore, declined to resort to the proviso to section
4
(1)
of the
Criminal Appeal Act,
1907,
and uphold any of the convictions
on
the grounds that
“
no
substantial miscarriage
of
justice had actually
occurred.” Equally, the statement could hardly be said to have
rendered the trial
a
nullity and the court refused to order
a
venire
de
nouo.
The notoriety
of
the case is itself some indication that flagrant
intimidation
of
juries is extremely rare in this country. Yet,
whilst English juries are,
it
would seem, almost invariably given
complete freedom to deliberate, instances of immoderate pressure
being exerted by
a
judge over a jury, less directly than in
McKenna’s
case, are not entirely unknown, and
it
would be wrong
to deny that some judges in the not
so
distant past acquired a
reputation for browbeating juries. Indeed, if the case comes as a
reminder to some of the more forceful judges of the limits on their
discretion
in
directing juries,
it
will have deserved some of its
notoriety.2
S.
PREVEZER.
RECOGNITION DISPUTE
AS
A
“
TRADE DISPUTE
”
THE
respondent company in
Beetham
v.
‘Trinidad Cement, Ltd.,’
employed
800
to
500
a
men
in
a
factory in Trinidad. The Federated
2
The
case
also makes the point, which is rarely mentioned in the textbooks,
that
a
person
can
be guilty
as
an
accessory after the fact
for
assisting the
principal felon by himself assisting
an
accessory after the fact
to
the same
1
Fzj
2
W.L.R.
77.
(Now
reported at
[I9601
A.C.
132.)
*
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