RIGHTING WRONGS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 152, 29 June 1945, Page 8

RIGHTING WRONGS

TRIBUNALS' DUTY

"MISTAKES LIKELY IN PAST"

Parliamentary Reporter. WELLINGTON, this day. "One cannot see much logic in the speeches made by the Opposition members," said the AttorneyGeneral, Mr. Mason, speaking in the debate in tne House of Representatives yesterday on the establishment of tribunals for the hearing of appeals by military defaulters. "Their attitude is if an injustice has been done it is too late now to rectify it. Why is it too late?" asked the Minister.

"If there had been an injustice, whv should it be allowed to continue? What had been done in England had been found to be sufficient to ensure the enforcement of the law, and could it be suggested that in approximating that law New Zealand was doing something to undermine the law? The new regulations had been objected to, but there was a plainly worded direction to the Revision Authority that a defaulter should not be released unless the authority was satisfied that he had a conscientious belief that prevented him participating in war. "The only question was to find the conscientious objector," he continued. "It was likely that mistakes had been made and, if so, why not rectify them? For the year ending March 31 last the results for all boards in New Zealand showed that 21 per cent of the appeals were allowed, 54 per cent were dismissed subject to non-combatant service and 25 per cent were dismissed outright. The percentages, however, between the various boards varied considerably. Appeals allowed varied from 33 per cent to 14 per cent, appeals dismissed subject to noncombatant service from 72 per cent to 43 per cent and appeals dismissed outright from 3 per cent to 32 per Cent - L 1 A. ' "While it was to be expected there would be some appreciable variation between one district and another, the extreme range of figures quoted made inevitable the inference that there had been differences in the severity of standards in the various districts. That was to be expected, as the personal equation always varied even with men who genuinely tried to work to a uniform standard. There had been no opportunity of rectifying those discrepancies. "The Returned Services' Association had made an emphatic statement that as far as conscientious objectors were concerned they had no quarrel with them," continued the Minister. "The new procedure was to correct any wrong classification and to see that no one suffered disability from his case being mis- | judged."