CHANGE PLANNED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 224, 22 September 1938, Page 22

CHANGE PLANNED.

MAGISTRATE'S COURT.

NECESSITY FOR EXTENSION.

SUBDIVISION OF THE WORK.

The fact that a mm of £5000 is set aside on the Public Works estimates for this year for alterations to Magistrate's Court building at Auckland gives additional grounds to a belief that plans for fairly extensive alteration work will be submitted during the next few months to the Department of Justice. It is known that a survey of the building was recently made bv officers of the Public Works Department, but no details are available yet. In view of the recognised congested nature of the building as it stands"however, it is believed that the plans will in all probability suggest an extension which will provide for an additional court.

Frequently four courts are in operation in the present building. Recently a magistrate occupying the bench in the

auxiliary court room was compelled to vacate the courtroom and continue his work in his own private room. This was necessary to allow an indictab'e case, in which there were many witnesses, to be licard before Justices of the Peace in the auxiliary court.

Kxaniples like this are not rare. Xearly every day the building is crowded with people, a substantial number of whom arc connected with such matters as traffic offences and maintenance cases. Often the corridors are so

■ingested tlij»t a visitor must almost fight his way through. The volume of work now handled has become so great that it is apparent that additional court facilities must be pro vided. One way—a method adopted in Australia and other countries—that suggests itself is by a subdivision of the court's business. This would entail retting one cot it room aside solely for the hearing of maintenance ind other domestic matters, applications under the Mental defectives Avt. inquests and juvenile cases. From the laynit of the building it seems feasible to expect that this course will be taken.

Should this be so, it is apparent that new space will have to be found for the additional courtroom, since it is iikely, with The work at its present volume, that the three existing room* v ill bo needed for police and various civil cases, <is well as for special occasions such as the marine inquiry which opened to-day.