CASE REOPENED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 112, 14 May 1934, Page 8

CASE REOPENED.

WOUNDING FIJIAN.

CHARGE AGAINST OVERSEER.

SUPREME COURT'S DECISION.

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SUVA, May 9.

The Attorney-General appeared in the Supreme Court on Tuesday before tlie Chief Justice to appeal against a decision of tlie district commissioner at Ra, who had dismissed a charge against a road overseer named Buchanan of maliciously wounding a Fijian. The Attorney General said that after hearino- the evidence of the wounded man and others for the prosecution, but without hearing the defendant, the magistrate dismissed the ea.-»e. lheie wa« 110 evidence to show that tlie Fijian should have been disbelieved. It was extraordinary that the case should have been dismissed on the evidence put forward. H : « Honor, after hearing argument, raid he was satisfied that the be reopened, and that he had the* power to do so. "It is. quite clear." he said, "that the magistrate misadvised himself in law, and it is clear that there is not a shadow of justification for the decision on the evidence. It was a very serious case, where a European had shot at a native, .so seriously wounding him that he had to remain in hospital 12 or 14 davs. The order of the Court therefore will be that the Attorney-General be at libertv to file an information, and it will then be open to the accused to argue any point of law which may arise out of the decision of the magistrate. T make this order because T am very (strongly of the oninion that this case was unsatisfactorily dealt with by the magistrate, and it is of the highest importance that it be fully investigated. T can not thmk that this magistrate is a fit and proper person to rehear the case."