CANADA'S COURT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 226, 23 September 1936, Page 23

CANADA'S COURT.

INDEPENDENCE MOVE. PRIVY COUNCIL COSTS. INJUSTICE TO LITIGANTS. TORONTO: Agitation to establish the supremacy of Canada's Supreme Court over London has received new impetus from the Court's recent decision on the constitutionality of the "New Deal" legislation drafted by the Bennett Government and supported by the present Mackenzie King Government in a reference from Parliament. Having pondered 500,000 words of evidence, the Court held two of the laws valid, one partly valid and two unconstitutional; it divided in opinion on three others. The Judges took five months to write their decisions. At the end of this vast amount of legal effort and thought, the Government intimated that the "New Deal laws would be argued all over again befoie the Judical Committee of the Privy Council in London, because the Court s rulings had 110 binding effect, but were merely opinions. • Months' Delay Inevitable. When the final decision of the Privy Council is made on the appeals expected to be entered by the Dominion in agice ment with the provinces which attacked the eight laws before the Supreme. Court, the Government will start recasting the laws in the light of the judgments, which may take months to re&ch.

This state of affairs has brought renewed demands for severing the legal link uniting Canada with the United Kingdom, as an impediment to free democratic expression. The Canadian Government is once more in the position of being unable to pass laws that are valid unless they have been sent to England for judical approval. Most potent of the voices raised in behalf of tjie supremacy of the Canadian Parliament is that of Senator Raoul Dandurand, Government leader in the Senate, legalist, former president of the League of Nations Assembly and intimate friend of Premier Mackenzie King. He favours "abolition altogether" of appeals to the Privy Council. Senator Dandurand spoke on a resolution by J. P. B. Casgrain, of Montreal, to state it as the Senate's opinion that a judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada, when unanimous, should be final except in constitutional cases. "This sentiment in favour of appeals to a triKinal across the seas is born of a feeling that I can only define as a colonial inferiority complex," said Senator Dandurand. "That stage should be past in the national life of Canada. We must be more self-reliant and confident in our own cultural and intellectural' attainments." In his legal experience, Senator Dandurand said, he had more than once seen appeals to the Privy Council impose an injustice to litigants, larly upon poor people suing corporations. He agreed that members of the Privy Council were learned judges, but added: "I am of. the opinion that Canadian justice for Canadians should be ample and satisfactory." i Senator Cargrain took the stand- that his motion .was to save £1400 to £1600 to poor litigants and "to stop, blackmail which winners suffered often" by threats of appeals- by 'corporations, thereby forcing comjfonii*ea. did noi believe

the foundations of the British Empire would be shaken by curtailment of appeals to London. Besides abolishing Privy Council appeals, Senator Dandurand would have Quebec Appeal Court judgments made final because only two of the seven judges of the Supreme Court had specialised in the laws of the Civil Code, based on the old Napoleonic Code, which prevailed in Quebec and differed froim the British common law prevailing in the other provinces. Canadians on Privy Council. The Privy Council's judiciary committee has Canadian representation, which strengthens the arguments of those in favour of retaining appeals, in that justice would be less liable to err if two learned judges familiar with Canadian conditions were on the higher bench considering the arguments of highpriced counsel. The three Canadian representatives are the present Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Sir Lyman Poore Duff; Sir William Muloek, retiring Chief Justice of Ontario, and the Governor of Quebec, Sir Charles Fitzpatrick. That the Government has every intention of maintaining the prestige of the Supreme Court, whatever action it. may take toward giving true meaning to its name is evidenced in an appropriation of £50,000 for a new court building in Ottawa to replace the present building, which was designed years ago as a carpenter shop. In a report tabled in the House of Commons soon after the opening of t' l6 iniposini new United StateSupreme Court Building in Washington, it was shamefacedly admitted that fish moths were eating up valuable records, rats ran in th■« basement, musty odours persisted, valuable volumes were rotting in the basement and ventilating fans were so noisy they could not be run.