"I wish to say a word or two about the position of the Attorney-General, because in my judgment it is of importance in this case, and his position appears likely to be lost sight of. Everybody knows that he is the head of the English Bar. We know that he has had from the earliest times to perform high judicial functions which are left to his discretion to decide. For example, where a man who is tried for his life and convicted alleges that there is error on the record, he cannot take advantage of that error unless he obtains the fiat of the Attorney-General, and no Court in the Kingdom has any controlling jurisdiction over him. That perhaps is the strongest case that can be put as to the position of the Attorney-General in exercising judicial functions. Another case in which the Attorney-General is preeminent is the power to enter a nolle prosequi in a criminal case.1 I do not say that when a case is before a Judge a prosecutor may not ask the Judge to allow the case to be withdrawn, and the Judge may do so if he is satisfied that there is no case; but the Attorney-General alone has power to enter a nolle prosequi, and that power is not subject to any control. Another case is that of a criminal information at the suit of the Attorney-General, a practice which has, I am sorry to say, fallen into disuse. The issue of such an information is entirely in the discretion of the Attorney-General, and no one can set such an information aside. There are other cases to which I could refer to be found in old and in recent statutes, but I have said enough to show the high judicial functions which the Attorney-General performs."