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majority verdict be one of guilty or of not guilty,
it shall not be allowed until there has been suffi
cient deliberation to allow the majority to win
over the dissentients, or vice versa. And it has
been held that by necessary implication, where
the verdict is one of not guilty, there shall be no
disclosure of whether it is a majority or a unani
mous verdict, thus ensuring that nobody will be
put into the doubtful position of being known to
have been found not guilty merely by a majority
decision. To the extent of these provisos, it may
be said that the section seeks
to protect from
injustice the life, person, good name, and property
rights of persons
tried by
jury
for criminal
offences. On the other hand, critics of the section
maintain that a verdict of guilty by a majority of
ten to two is at variance with the general prin
ciple of the criminal law that guilt must be proved
beyond reasonable doubt. They ask how, if one-
sixth of a jury of twelve are in favour of an
acquittal, it can be said that guilt has been estab
lished beyond reasonable doubt.
The aspects of trial by jury of criminal charges
dealt with in this article are but a few of the
matters that would need
to be considered
in
deciding the scope of the constitutional right to
jury trial given by Article 38 (5). If answers have
not been given to all the questions raised, it is
because it has not been intended to do so. Rather
has it been the purpose to suggest that on a topic
such as jury trial in criminal cases, which lies
deeply embedded in the history of the Irish people
and which has been a hallmark of liberty in the
common-law world, there is much to be learned,
by lawyers and lawmakers alike, from history and
comparative law.
DUBLIN CONFERENCE ON LEGISLATION
OF EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES
Part II
The Attorney-General is to be asked to set up a
special committee
to consider
the legal
impli
cations of E.E.C. membership for this country,
Mr. John Temple Lang told the International
Legal Conference on the Expansion of the Euro
pean Communities in Dublin that the small com
mittee of the Attorney-General and five civil ser
vants, which has been dealing with this subject
since 1962, was completely inadequate.
Mr. Temple Lang said
that the suggestion
would go to the Attorney-General within a few
days. The new committee, he suggested, should
include judges, practising lawyers, academic law
yers and civil
servants, under
the Attorney-
General. The existing committee of busy, over
worked civil servants could not provide a serious
consideration of the legal implications of mem
bership for Ireland. The wider committee now
being suggested was urgently needed.
When he opened the conference the Taoiseach,
Mr. Lynch,
referred at
some
length
to
the
Attorney-General's committee, and indicated that
its work was continuing.
The conference produced a great deal of discus
sion which could be called politico-legal, as well
as debate on
technicalities of the law. About
twenty-five background papers prepared for, and
circulated at the conference, ran to 350 pages of
invaluable source material on many aspects of the
E.E.C. and the four applicant countries. (These
include Mr. Temple Lang's paper on the consti
tutional implications for Ireland; Dr. Garret Fitz-
Gerald, on the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Agree
ment; Mr. Marcus Mclnerney, on Ireland and
Agriculture; and Mr. Brendan McGrath, on
Transport Law in Ireland and the U.K. Of less
parochial interest here are papers dealing with
E.E.C. and the Netherlands Antilles, or Green
land or the Faroe Islands.)
Professor Hilding Eek, of the University of
Stockholm, prepared a paper on Neutrality and
the European Communities, and also chaired a
morning's session on foreign and regional relations
in the Community.
In fact the discussion produced relatively little
comment on neutrality. In his paper, Professor
Eek quoted
legal definitions of neutrality and
discussed commercial and ideological neutrality
before considering the cases of Switzerland, Aus
tria and Sweden. His comment on Irish neutrality
was perhaps conclusive—he did not mention it
at all.
He distinguished between
the neutralities of
Switzerland and Austria and that of Sweden. The
two former had, in
their constitutions and in
other legal enactments, codified and defined their
status as neutrals. Sweden had not accepted any
international obligation to remain neutral :
it was
not a "neutralised" State nor a neutral State in
the legal sense.
"Nevertheless, the country follows a policy of
neutrality in the conduct of its foreign affairs .. .
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