Source: https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1924/mar/25/legitimacy-bill-hl
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 14:22:08+00:00

Document:
My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a third time.
§ On Question, Bill read 3a: privilege Amendments made.
§ Legitimation by subsequent marriage of parents.
§ (4) The Registrar-General may, on production of satisfactory evidence, authorise at any time the re-registration of the birth of a legitimated person, and such re-registration shall be effected in such manner and at such place as the Registrar-General may by regulations prescribe.
(2) An avowal made by the father on the occasion of the registration of the birth or of the baptism and recorded in the certificate.
(3) An avowal made by the father in writing at the time of the marriage and delivered by him to the minister or officer performing the marriage ceremony, which minister or officer shall forthwith transmit the same to the Registrar-General for safe custody.
(4) An avowal made by the father in writing and transmitted to the Registrar-General within one year of the marriage.
(5) Any satisfactory evidence produced to the Registrar-General within one year of the marriage to authorise the re-registration of the birth as that of a legitimated person, which registration shall be effected in such manner and at such place as the Registrar-General may by regulation!? prescribe.
§ The noble Earl said: My Lords, I apologise for introducing an Amendment at this stage, but the discussion of this Bill has developed at different stages constant doubts in the minds of many noble Lords as to whether its provisions have not been made too drastic in the public interest. The Amendment which I ventured to place upon the Paper has high legal support. No fewer than four of the highest legal authorities in this House have examined and approved the Amendment and it has been actually drawn by one of them. I desire to point out that the absence of some provision 1009 of this kind would complicate what has always been an extremely doubtful condition of things. The noble and learned Lord in charge of the Bill has taken the view throughout this discussion that the interests of any individual affected by the Bill are more important than the interests of those who, though not suffering from disabilty, will also be affected by the Bill.
§ In the course of the discussion on the Report stage three legal members of your Lordships' House—Lord Phillimore, Lord Shandon and another—introduced fresh arguments and fresh cases which I venture to say had not occurred to any of the lay members of the House. The noble and learned Lord in charge of the Bill also made a statement which probably not one member sitting on the Benches behind me was aware of—that when the Bill becomes law the existing difference between real and personal estate will have vanished and there will be no transmission to the eldest child. That is a very far reaching provision, and it is quite clear that under this Bill these questions will immediately arise. Take the case of a man who, after many years, has made up his mind (having, perhaps, been married in the interval) to marry the woman by whom he had an illegitimate child There is no attempt to obtain publicity which would enable inquiries to be made as to the offspring's legitimacy. He may go in a clandestine manner to a registry office and no member of his family may suspect what has occurred. There is nothing in the Bill to force him or any other authority to establish what children are affected by this action of his. As a matter of fact, in many cases it would be the object of those chiefly concerned to keep the whole thing as quiet as possible.
§ There are two classes who may be greatly affected. Take the case of a man in the humbler walks of life. In the course of the last few weeks we have seen, I will not say practical unanimity, but a very strong feeling, in another place that widows should be provided with pensions. I happen to live near Aldershot, and I can assure your Lordships that the levity with which marriages were contracted during the war by men going to the front (sometimes the day before they went away) in order to obtain for the 1010 women the advantages of a pension, was very great, and I think it is extremely likely that if a system of pensions is adopted in the future there may be a double incentive—the fact that if a man goes through a form of marriage with a woman whom he formerly wronged, it will not merely legitimise the children but: will give her some substance on which to live. My noble and learned friend may say that that is a great advantage, but besides the illegitimate child for which the man was responsible, there may be other children who have been born in the years during which the parties concerned never met.
§ Observe what the effect of that would be on the legitimate offspring of a marriage. I do not labour the point of the personal feeling which would be aroused when things were learned that were never before known. Remember that these things have been sprung upon the legitimate children. Remember, too, that the fact that there is another family who are to share their inheritance has been unknown to them, and that they have no power whatever of making investigations many-years afterwards as to which members of this other family may legitimately claim to share with them the inheritance. When the noble and learned Lord deals with this question, he invariably tells your Lordships that every man will make proper provision in his will to meet these contingencies. With all due respect to my noble and learned friend, I do not think that is so.
§ A great many people who ought to know the law either do not know, or forget, that marriage vitiates and nullifies a will already made. I believe there are many men who have not the slightest idea that on their marriage they are intestate until they make a fresh will. Even those who know make the most terrible mistakes. A legal member of this House who died not so very long ago, and who had himself presided over the Probate Court for many years, so far forgot all the rules he himself had been administering as to put two material pages into his will twelve years afterwards, and never had them witnessed. I think that in the case of marriages many of which are celebrated as quietly as possible, and in which there would be no question of settlements to bring in lawyers, it may be admitted that there is very great danger of intestacy. 1011 Therefore I submit to your Lordships that the provisions which I have ventured to put down are absolutely necessary.
§ If the noble and learned Lord succeeds in persuading Parliament absolutely to reverse what has hitherto been the practice—that bastards do not rank as legitimate children—if he persuades Parliament to take that step, then I say that, in justice to those who are legitimate, he ought to protect them to the extent of not throwing upon them the onus of carrying on legal proceedings many years afterwards in order to discover which members of another family have a right to enter into co-possession with them. I will not say anything on the question of titles, because the noble and learned Lord disclaims in the Bill that it affects succession to titles, but I would earnestly point out to your Lordships that I believe that before many years have passed some noble and learned Lord will come here and tell us that of all injustices you cannot have a greater than that of a child which is legitimated by the law being nevertheless unable to rank with his brothers for succession to title. Therefore I venture to urge that the House should be certain that those who are to have the advantage of the Bill should in reality be persons whom it is intended by the Bill to legitimate. I beg to move.
My Lords, I would not occupy time in connection with this Amendment were it not that I wish, so far as I can, to place upon record what not only is my opinion, but also, I am quite satisfied, the opinion of a very large section of people who are not lawyers, or in any sense objectors to the fair provisions of this Bill. I realise, as did the noble Lord who moved the Amendment, that it does seem a little late in our proceedings that this matter, which is a very serious one, should come up to be discussed. I confess that I had omitted to notice it until a late stage of Report, and I said that that being so it would not fairly rest with me, having made that blunder, further to interfere. But the matter now comes before your Lordships in the form of an Amendment, and I certainly wish, late though it be, to urge your Lordships to consider and vote in favour of this Amendment. After 1012 all, our procedure is elastic, and very properly so. If it does permit an Amendment of this kind, even at a late stage, to be moved, I think that is all to the good. It is never too late to look back so long as there is a possibility of preventing the doing of a thing which may be inopportune or inadvisable.
The principle which is contained in this Bill has unquestionably the approval of your Lordships' House. I think it also has the approval of the great majority of His Majesty's subjects. As I said in the debate, it has my whole-hearted approval, but we must not forget that we are now altering something that has been the law for centuries. That is not a reason why, if it is wrong, we should not alter it, but it is a reason why, even on the Third Reading, we should see that perhaps we do not go a little too far, and do not do something which may be very wrong indeed. In the course of the debate it was urged that there were many points in this Bill which, if they became law without restrictions, might do serious wrong. The answer to that was given by the noble and learned Lord. "Oh no," he said, in effect, "because it is a question of evidence. The Courts are always open; the Courts may be looked to to weigh the evidence for and against. Our law of evidence is of that elastic nature that we pride ourselves upon it, and it is good." But elasticity may perhaps not be an unmixed blessing, and it seems to me that that may be found to be so in cases of this kind which may arise.
Evidence in connection with this matter of legitimacy or illegitimacy may frequently be quite clear. If a man and woman during their life-time treat the offspring which are irregularly brought into the world as being their children, and there is clear evidence of that, it is quite right that those children should be legitimated. But there may be instances in which the contrary is the case. And these are not the only cases that may arise. There are some of us who can see a great many eases in which injury may be done unless care is taken in framing the law which regulates these matters. So I think it is necessary that there should be some safeguards introduced, and I regard this as an attempt, it may be an imperfect attempt, but an intelligent attempt, to do so and to effect a compromise between the too strict provisions of 1013 foreign codes and our perhaps too elastic procedure. I am entirely in favour of the principle of the Bill, but I think it is good sense to place some reasonable restrictions on the manner in which parentage is to be established.
My Lords, the noble Earl who moved this Amendment did not disguise his genuine dislike of the whole Bill, and he devoted not a little part of his speech to general strictures upon the measure itself. Indeed, his strictures barely stopped there. So far as.I can understand he complained bitterly of the fact that I should have announced to an astonished House the fact that an Act of Parliament was passed through both Houses of Parliament two years ago. It really is not my fault, the noble Earl will, I trust, believe me, that a Bill has been passed which assimilates the descent of real and personal property. It is the fault of this House as much as anybody else's, and of the noble Earl among others, and he may again express the sense of astonishment he feels when I tell him what the law is going to be at the expiration of twelve months. But I am not going to pursue these matters as they are wholly irrelevant to the Amendment which is now before your Lordships for your consideration.
What is the Amendment? It is this. It is an attempt to establish a series of fixed and inflexible rules by which, and by which alone, the legitimation of a person who is made legitimate by this Bill can be established. As the Bill stands the position is this. A man is, in fact, legitimated by the subsequent marriage of his parents with the exception of the case which was removed from the operation of the Bill at the instance of the most rev. Primate. He is. in fact, legitimated by the marriage, but there still remains the question of proving that he was the child of the two parents who subsequently went through the marriage ceremony. The Bill provides that it is possible to have a re-registration of the birth, but it does not say, and it would be most unwise to attempt to say, that the re-registration of birth should be conclusive evidence that the child had become legitimate, because, in truth, no certificate of birth is ever proof of the birth itself. It is nothing but evidence, and good evidence of the birth. It has to be proved by some persons who 1014 can speak to the fact that the certificate is in fact the certificate of the birth of any particular person. The Amendment seems to have assumed that a certificate of birth is more efficacious, It is nothing at all.
The noble and learned Lord will pardon me. If he will read the last sentence he will find the words, "unless one, of the matters and things above-mentioned is first proved."
Yes, "no proof … shall be admitted." As I read it unless it is proved, and it is essential that this should be proved, you cannot prove legitimation. ' I say again that it is tying the hands of the Judges. Why should you? Let me assume a case perfectly well known and easy to establish, of a child legitimated by the subsequent marriage, and that these formalities had not been complied with—formalities in an Act, of Parliament about which the noble Earl himself says it is extremely unlikely many people will know. If that is the case why should you deprive of the benefits of the Bill a man who is capable of being clearly established, to the satisfaction of the Judge who has to try the case, as the child of parents who subsequently married? I submit respectfully that it is a most unwise, a most undesirable, thing to lay down rules by which Judges 1015 must be bound in exercising their judicial functions. I have often thought, and I have often, I think, expressed to your Lordships, how much I personally regret that our wonderful, elastic, adaptable rules of common law are from time to time killed and made rigid by Acts of Parliament. It has always seemed to me that an Act of Parliament is nothing but a scar cut through the living tissue of the law. Nothing, I submit to your Lordships, can be worse than to introduce with regard to this matter rules of this kind, which do not exist at the present moment with regard to any similar case, and which impose upon the Judges conditions which, I submit with respect to your Lordships, the Judges are much better capable of making for themselves.
My Lords, this Bill, I venture to say, is a good Bill—I said so on the Second Beading—but, nevertheless, I submit to your Lordships that the Amendment of the noble Earl is a good Amendment. Let me put a practical case to your Lordships. A man has connection with a woman, who has a child. It may be his, or it may not be. She has other children, which may be his or may not be. Late in life he marries her, and, as the noble Lord has said, he forgets to make a fresh will. He dies, and those who succeed him on an intestacy succeed. His sisters, his brothers, his nephews and nieces, who have been expecting to benefit, suddenly hear of two or three or more children of a woman who, no doubt, at one time had some connection with this man, but who may have had connection with several others. It is almost impossible at that time of day to know whether these children are the children of the dead man or not.
Take a stronger case. When this Bill was before your Lordships' House last year it never, I think, reached Committee, but I have been refreshing my memory and I find that the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, put down an Amendment, which would have been moved, and which was not unlike the Amendment which the noble Earl, Lord Malmesbury, moved in Committee, and which your Lordships in your wisdom saw fit to reject. That being so, a man may have connection with a woman, he may then marry and have legitimate children, his wife may die and he may marry the woman towards the end 1016 of his days. The legitimate children may then, for the first time, be told that there exist a child or children by this woman who are going to claim in competition or in equality with them. The object of this Amendment is not to prevent legitimation but to ensure that it is a genuine legitimation. I do not think the noble and learned Lord, who was rather fierce about this matter, has really put his mind to studying this Amendment. I speak with all respect. There are not a number of conditions, all of which must be fulfilled; there are a number of facultative conditions, any one of which may be fulfilled, any one of which would entitle the claimant to go on and prove his case. They do not bind the Judge to accept his claim, and any one of them will enable him to proceed with that claim.
Has the noble and learned Lord never heard of a case of breach of promise of marriage? Does he remember that when an Act of Parliament cut through the common law and enabled people who were interested to give evidence, an exemption was for a long time made with regard to cases of breach of promise of marriage, because it was felt that people were not to be trusted, and that a woman might give a story that the jury would accept as against the man? Ultimately, it was provided that her evidence is admissible, but it is not admissible unless it is supported by something else. Why, on the same principle, should not evidence in these cases be admissible, but only if supported by something else? I do not want to take your Lordships to French law, but it illustrates what I was going to say. In numbers of cases of contract under French law you must have first of all un commencement de preuve par écrit—something to start with. On the same sort of principle, and to avoid trumped-up claims, there should in these cases be some proof of some one of these things being done. After all, the object of many of these marriages will be to legitimate children and to make the thing regular. Do you suppose that the woman will not think that she ought to have something done to have her child taken care of? There are a number of conditions, any one of which will meet the case. This Amendment has now been down for a week. Surely the right course for the noble and learned Lord to take was to see if he could not improve the Amendment 1017 and add to its conditions, or substitute more easy conditions. As it stands, I submit to your Lordships that, for the sake of avoiding trumped-up claims, something like this ought to be passed.
My Lords, I have found this a difficult Amendment to deal with, and my difficulty has not been diminished by the fact that the noble and learned Lord in charge of the Rill, of whom it is rash ever to say that he does not understand anything, does not really seem to have understood the purpose and effect of this Amendment. If I understand it lightly, the purpose is this. My noble friend Lord Midleton says, and says truly, that the parents of an illegitimate child may be silent as to their parentage at the date of their marriage. They may say nothing at the time, and years afterwards somebody may say: "These two people have married: I was their illegitimate child, and I claim the benefit of the Act." That point might arise ten, twenty, thirty years after the marriage, for all that this Bill may say, and you will not only have great difficulty as to proof, but you may, as my noble friend says, disappoint the expectations, and, indeed, what appear to be the certainties, of other children of the same parents. The noble Earl wants an understanding; he wants to have some certainty in the matter.
Will the noble and learned Viscount tell me how, in the case that he proposes, this man is going to prove that he is the illegitimate child ?
He will be able to bring evidence, as people bring evidence to-day of matters which are said to have happened twenty or thirty years ago. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they fail. That is the kind of process which he will have to go through. As I understand the Amendment, it does not say at ail that the Judges who have to try these cases are to accept this evidence, and this evidence only, nor, indeed, that they are in any way to be bound by this evidence if it is accepted.
You cannot get on without it.
That is exactly what I was going to say. What the Amendment says is that, unless these things have been done of the kind mentioned in the Amendment, then the Bill-shall not apply. What are the things which my noble friend lays down, not as proof, but as conditions precedent. He says, in substance, that one of three things must happen. Either there must have been an affiliation order, which is good prima facie evidence of parentage, or there must have been an avowal by the father at the date of the child's birth, or the date of the marriage, or proof of the parentage within one year after the marriage. One of those three things must have happened. Unless one of those three things has happened there shall be no proof of the parentage of the illegitimate child at all. I agree in principle with my noble friend. I think there ought to be some certainty in this matter at some reasonable time. In form I think the Amendment might be improved, but it is impossible for us to attempt to improve it to-day, and I do not want to pass by this Amendment because I am not entirely satisfied with its form. There will be opportunity in another place of reconsidering the form of the Bill, and I think my best course to-day would be to support the Amendment, hoping to see it put in a better form in another place.
My purpose in rising is to offer to your Lordships such assistance as I can in coining to a conclusion on this Amendment. I own that I should not have thought it very difficult were it not for the important question raised by Lord Cave and Lord Phillimore. The Registrar-General is a mere administrative official, and he cannot make a thing res judicata. But the directions under this Amendment are not directions to the Registrar-General but to the Judges. I should be sorry to think that the discretion of the Judges in determining what evidence they are to act upon in deciding the question of legitimation should be fettered in the way which is proposed. The danger of the enumeration contained in this Amendment is that if these words are accepted they will go far to distract the attention of the Judges. In my opinion it would be far better to leave to competent Judges the application of rules of evidence in these cases, with which they 1019 are familiar, and which the Courts have been applying for centuries. I am very much opposed to distracting the attention of the Judges by putting in things which arc not only in some cases irrelevant but not exhaustive. If my noble friend Lord Buckmaster opposes this new subsection I shall support him.
My Lords, I hope you will not reject this Amendment, although I agree that its form is capable of improvement. I do not read the Amendment in the sense in which the Lord Chancellor has just expressed himself. If I thought it were a series of directions to the Judges as to how, in ascertaining the question of parentage, they are to be guided, I should say that we had better not put it in. I think, however, that the whole object of this clause is to say that something must be done within a reasonable time to make it clear that this child is the acknowledged child of the father. It would be a most grievous state of affairs if, after fifty years, a family should suddenly come forward to interfere with the rights of legitimate children.
The view which I take of the Amendment is this: It does not say that the Judges are to attend to the following-points in making up their minds. What it says is that certain things must be done at a comparatively early period, before the Judges can entertain the question of the truth of the claim. The whole object is to secure something being done at an early date. Take the last sentence, which in my opinion gives the keynote of the whole thing. I am not sure that it would not have been better to have put it at the beginning. It says "unless one of the matters and things above mentioned is first proved, no proof that the illegitimate person is such child as aforesaid shall be admitted." That is to say, the claim is to be entertained only if early reasonable notice was given of the fact that this child was born of these parents.
§ (3) An avowal made by the father in writing at the time of the marriage and delivered by him to the minister or officer performing the marriage ceremony, which minister or officer shall forthwith transmit the same to the Registrar-General for safe custody.
§ (4) An avowal made by the father in writing and transmitted to the Registrar-General within one year of the marriage.
§ (5) Any satisfactory evidence produced to the Registrar-General within one year of the marriage to authorise the re-registration of the birth as that of a legitimated person, which registration shall be effected in such manner and at such place as the Registrar-General may by regulations prescribe.
§ Surely nothing can be more reasonable than to secure that before anyone is to be allowed to come before the Courts to establish that he is legitimated under this Bill notice should have been given in one of these five methods. That is the whole object of the Amendment. If I thought it did what Lord Buckmaster and the Lord Chancellor think I should be opposed to it, because I do not like giving directions to the Judges. But it does nothing of the kind. It merely imposes a condition to secure that timely notice shall be given that a particular person claims such paternity.
My Lords, it seems to me that if your Lordships put in this subsection a great many people now alive would be excluded from the operation of the Bill. For instance, under paragraph (4), an avowal is to be made within a year of the marriage. The marriage may have taken place some years ago, and this paragraph would seem to limit the operation of Clause 1, subsection (1), where-under people would be legitimated from the commencement of the Act. It seems to me that the noble Earl, by the insertion of this Amendment, is striking out a great many living people whom he has no intention of affecting by his Amendment.
My Lords, I am always very much impressed by anything which Lord Cave may say, but I should like to be clear as to what is meant here in order to give an intelligent vote upon the matter. Although your Lordships may say that you do not exclude from the consideration of the Judges such evidence 1021 as they may see fit to take, you do say that they are not to hear that evidence unless one of five things is done. Three of these things affect the Registrar-General. It may perfectly well be that people to whom these things have happened have been living abroad, possibly in America, where they are not in touch with the Registrar-General and not in a position to register the birth, or to communicate with him. Paragraph (2) relates to the registration of the birth or to baptism. It may be that the birth was not registered by the father, but was registered long before he married the mother, and therefore he had no opportunity of making an avowal on the occasion of the registration of the birth. It may happen that the child was not baptised at all, and therefore he has no opportunity at its baptism of making this avowal. As to the affiliation order, I take it that it is in a very small percentage of cases that there will be an affiliation order.
§ understood all along, to protect the interests of the child, are you not here punishing the child on account of some neglect of a formality by the father? Unless these questions can be satisfactorily answered, I think it is very difficult I to support this Amendment.
May I, by the leave of the House, answer the questions which the noble Karl has put? The Amendment does not say that the Judges may not look into the question unless the evidence takes this form. It says they may not look into it unless one of these conditions precedent has been fulfilled. That is where I think the noble Earl goes wrong, as other people have gone wrong. Lord Gorell's point is a perfectly good one, and if the Amendment finally passes in this form. I think you would shut out from the Bill certain people who already are married and whose children would otherwise come within the provisions of the Bill. It is one of the points I had in my mind when I said the form of the Amendment would require very careful consideration. I think you would have to give a period after the passing of the Act within which declarations would have to be made.
After the discussion which has taken place, I hope your Lordships will understand that I feel it my duty to press the Amendment.
§ On Question, Whether subsection (4) shall be left out of the Bill ?
§ Their Lordships divided: Contents, 41; Not-Contents, 29.
Parmoor, L. (L. President.) Cave, V. Erskine, L.
Chilston, V. Fairfax of Cameron, L.
Argyll, D. Cross, V. Harris, L.
Devonshire, D. Falmouth, V. Jessel, L.
Wellington, D. Finlay, V. Kylsant, L.
Hutchinson, V. (E. Donoughmore.) MacDonnell, L.
Curzon of Kedleston, M. Mildmay of Flete, L.
Dartmouth, E. Chalmers, L. Shandon, L.
Midleton, E. [Teller.] Cottesloe, L. Stewart of Garlies, L.
Plymouth, E. Crawshaw, L. Teynham, L.
Stanhope, E. Danesfort, L. Treowen, L.
Haldane, V. (L. Chancellor.) Knutsford, V. Lyell, L.
Buxton, E. Askwith, L. Newton, L.
De La Warr, E. Balfour of Burleigh, L. Pentland, L.
Kimberley, E. Buckmaster, L. [Teller.] Ritchie of Dundee, L.
Russell, E. Faringdon, L. Shuttleworth, L.
Bertie of Thame, V. Gorell, L. Swaythling, L.
Chelmsford, V. Heneage, L. Thomson, L.
§ Resolved in the affirmative and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
I beg to move that the proposed new subsection be here inserted.

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