DANGEROUS POWER

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 153, 30 June 1934, Page 12

DANGEROUS POWER

CABINET AND SAMOA.

LIBERTY SAFEGUARDS REMOVED. MR. JUSTICE BJJAIR'S VIEW. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) WELLINGTON - , Friday. Tn liis dissenting judgment, Mr. Justice Blair was of opinion that all the convictions entered against appellant should be quashed, on the ground that the Samoa seditious organisations regulations, 3930, were invalid. His Honor based his opinion on two grounds —lirst, that the regulations were repugnant to the provisions of the Samoa Act, 1921; secondly, because such regulations were ultra vires, in that they purported to authorise the imposition of imprisonment for offences created by them. On the question of repugnancy, tile judge said the eft'ect of the regulations was to place into the hands of the Administrator the power of declaring that a particular organisation was seditious, thus preventing any person charged with encouraging such organisation from raising the question of whether such organisation was seditious, and rendering it unnecessary for the Crown to prove seditious intention. In other words, a new offence of a seditions nature was created by regulations, and the important safeguards provided by the Legislature for the liberty of persons charged with sedition were removed. Court's Duty to Parliament. "In my humble judgment," his Honor said, "this Court lias a duty to Parliament as the guardian of the rights and liberties of the people, whether they are British or Samoan, or even foreigners abiding in our land, jealously to scrutinise the words of any statute purporting to clothe subordinate authorities, with legislative powers touching the life or liberty of the people. Parliament looks to this Court to uphold respect for and preserve the paramount authority of the Legislature.

"It is the duty of this Court to see that any powers so conferred are clearly set out in the statute purporting to confer them. I venture to say that if when section 4£ of the Samoa Act came up for consideration in the Legislature it had been suggested that that section was designed to give the Governor-General-in-Council (which is, in reality, the Cabinet) the dangerous powers it is submitted for the. Crown that the section confers, it would have filled members of that august assembly with consternation. 'Touching Sacred Subjects. , "It has been said more than once that there is a tendency in modern legislation to leave a great deal to be provided by regulation, but I have yet to see any statute wherein the Legislature has been content to confer on a subordinate body untrammelled authority to frame laws touching sueh sacred subjects as life and liberty. If we were content to leave to mere implication from the general words, followed as those general words are by other words of undoubted limitation, such a vital power as it is sought by the Crown in this case to establish, I feel strongly that we would be imputing to Parliament some disregard of the trusts reposed in it. '"As in my view there is no power vested in the Governor-General-in-Couneil to impose a greater penalty than a fine, it follows that in my opinion the regulations, in so far as they purport to impose imprisonment, are invalid, and as a consequence all the convictions entered against appellant should be quashed." - ;