ABSTRACT
The person of the criminal himself had, as much as possible, to be kept in the background. A most elaborate and ingenious system, the law of evidence, has been established to ensure that the facts of the crime should be found out as impartially as humanly possible whilst on the other hand it is regarded as the—unwritten but none the less vital—duty of the judge and jury or of the magistrate to keep themselves distant from the prisoner in order to preserve not only their impartiality itself, but also its external appearance. It is difficult to say whether the Criminal Justice Bill, taken as a whole, can be regarded as tending towards a further strengthening of the powers of administrative authorities at the expense of the Courts. There are still two other points which seem particularly suitable for demonstrating the grave dangers which may arise from an inadequate adaptation of the criminal procedure to the needs of a Juvenile Court.
