I want just to make quickly three proposals to implement Clause 5 and incidentally to strengthen the Commonwealth ties by doing so.
First, I would ask my right hon. Friend to ensure that a Malayan judge is frequently available to sit in the Judicial Committee. If Malaysia is to send appeals here and keep this Commonwealth link, then we should see that a Malayan judge is sitting from time to time in the Judicial Committee. We had for many years a most valuable Ceylon judge on the Judicial Committee. We have recently had a very eminent New Zealand judge sitting there, and I hope that we can get this principle well recognised, that those countries who retain the appellate jurisdiction of the Judicial Committee should have their own judges sitting on that Committee.
My second proposal is that the Judicial Committee should go on circuit. It should not only sit in the old town hall by Admiralty Arch. Indeed, perhaps hon. and right hon. Members do not know that it sits in an old town hall by Admiralty Arch. It used to sit in Downing Street. But if we are to continue this as a Commonwealth court it should go on circuit throughout the Commonwealth. Air travel is so quick these days that it is almost as quick to move the court out to Kuala Lumpur as to get a Scottish Law Lord down from Edinburgh, and here is an opportunity, with this Bill going through, to say that for the Michael as sittings in 1963 the Judicial Committee will sit in Kuala Lumpur. We should set that precedent, taking the opportunity of this Bill. When Malaya and the other States joining in this Bill have said, "This has worked for the past six years admirably, we are going to continue it," surely we in this House should respond by urging my right hon. Friend to see that arrangements are made for the Judicial Committee to sit in Kuala Lumpur for sittings in the very near future.
Thirdly, we have talked time and again in this House about the Judicial Committee being the supreme court of appeal for the Commonwealth, but we have never been prepared to recognise it as such ourselves. We continue with the House of Lords as our supreme appeal court. Can we really expect enthusiasim for the Judicial Committee from the emerging Commonwealth nations, and, indeed, can we expect Clause 5 of this Bill to last for any length of time, if we ourselves stand aloof from this Commonwealth court? Of course, it is a quite Gilbertian situation when we think that exactly the same members sit in a Committee Room of the other place here as the supreme court of appeal for our judicial system in this country as sit in the old town hall as the Judicial Committee, the supreme court of appeal for the Commonwealth. Surely our right course, if we wish to keep this great and practical Commonwealth link, is to abolish the appellate jurisidiction of the House of Lords and put in its place the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council under a new style, the Commonwealth Court of Appeal, advising the Heads of State of each of the Commonwealth nations.
I would warn my right hon. Friend that this is a matter for him and not for the Law Officers. I have pleaded this case in Adjournment debates and so on over many years. I have made no progress whatever with the Law Officers' Department. It will never be done if my right hon Friend passes it to them, and I very much doubt whether we shall hold Clause 5 of this Bill for any length of time if this is not done now or at any rate soon. This is a major Commonwealth political decision, and this is the opportune time to reform both the House of Lords as an appeal court and the Judicial Committee and to form them into the Commonwealth Appeal Court. Malaya and the new Malaysia have pointed the way to this, and the form under which it can be done, without any loss of prestige whatever to the independent Commonwealth nations, and we should not disregard the wisdom they have shown.
- 2.20 p.m.
Mr. James Griffiths (Llanelly) As a layman, I was very interested in the suggestions made by the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page). I was particularly interested in his suggestion that the Judicial Committee of the British Council should go on tour, which would provide a useful link to cement the Commonwealth still further.
I was also very interested in the speech by my right hon. Friend the Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker), who spoke so interestingly about the Commonwealth. I was very interested in his suggestion that the time has come
