APPEAL BOARDS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 146, 22 June 1945, Page 6

APPEAL BOARDS

WAR PENSIONS CASES

RADICAL CHANGE ADVOCATED P.A. WELLINGTON, this day. A revolutionary change in the constitution of the War Pensions Appeal Boards was recommended by the New Zealand R.S.A. conference' today, on a motion sponsored by Auckland. The resolution urged the repeal of section 8 of the War Pensions Act, which provides that an appeal board shall consist of two doctors and a chairman, and requests that the board have three lay members, plus a doctor in an advisory capacity, one lay member to represent the forces and be nominated by the R.S.A., and the chairman and doctor to be approved by the Minister and the association.'

Further, it was recommended that all reports used as evidence from medical practitioners should be in writing and be available to the appellants or their representatives. Mr. R. G. Mason, Auckland, said that at present the board was illiberal in its assessment of pensions. It had formed a new policy of making aggravation of an earlier or congenital disability pensionable for only a short time after a serviceman's return, nor did the present board grant assumptions as to attributability, as the old board had done.

"The board is harder and tighter every day, to such extent that in a war widow's appeal you have prove the death of the husband '"as clearly as you would have to defend a charge of murder," said I Mr. Mason.