ORAKEI LAND

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 199, 24 August 1942, Page 4

ORAKEI LAND

APPEAL BY CROWN

NATIVE APPELLATE COURT

The continued occupancy by native people of the Crown land known as Orakei No. 1 Reserve was the subject of argument before the Chief Judge, Mr. G. P. Shepherd, associated with Mr. E. M. Beechey and Mr. R. P. Dykes, in the Native Appellate Court to-day, when the Crown appealed against an interim judgment in the Native Land Court by Mr. F. O. V. Acheson. Previous Judgments Mr. V. R. Meredith said the judgment had reference to houses on the Papakainga subdivision and on the old church site at Orakei. He cited a Supreme Court judgment by Mr. Justice Reed, and the findings of the Commission by Mr. Justice Kennedy, that the natives had no legal right to occupy the houses on Crown land. Mr. Justice Kennedy, in his report, said there was an agreement to pay the owners of the houses a fair valuation for them, or give the right of removal, and there was some justification for the natives living in the houses until they found alternative accommodation elsewhere within a limited period. To bring the matter to finality an Order-in-Council of April, 1941, gave the Native Land Court jurisdiction to find the owners of the houses, fix an equitable valuation to be paid them, and to fix a just and reasonable time for removal of the houses, or from the houses if compensated by their value. In September, 1941, Judge Acheson gave an interim judgment stating that the ownership and valuations of the houses in the Papakainga subdivision could not be ascertained unless the Court took evidence at Orakei. The judgment added that it was not just, equitable, right or reasonable to ask these natives in occupation of houses on the old church site to move until other places had been provided for them to go to.

Counsel argued that this judgment was wrong in law, and in effect abrogated the Crown's ownership rights to the land which had been decided by two previous Courts. It was also a refusal to exercise the Native Land Court's jurisdiction on the specific points referred to it to answer. Compensation Offer In reply to the Chief Judge, counsel said the Crown had actually bought the houses with the land, but by an act of grace agreed to compensate the individual owners of the houses for the cost of the building, or to allow such buildings to be removed. Now the Native Land Court's judgment said in effect that if the occupants of the houses elected not to accept compensation they could live there on the Crown's land till the Crown provided them with another home.

(Proceeding.)