The Bruce Herald. "Nemo me impune lacesset." TOKOMAIRIRO, JUNE 7, 1878.

Bruce Herald, Volume XI, Issue 1016, 7 June 1878, Page 5

The Bruce Herald. "Nemo me impune lacesset." TOKOMAIRIRO, JUNE 7, 1878.

A TELEO-tAM in another column announces a somewhat radical reform, or, it might be better Baid, change, in the administration of justice in New Zealand. Tbe Government have resolved, practically, to dispense with the services of all Resident Magistrates who are not - lawyers ; to appoint one Resident Magistrate and District Court Judge for, each provincial district, and to strike off the roll all Justices of the Peace who consider that the duties of, their office s j.are fiHed by appending the; interesting letters J. P. to their signatures whenever occasion permi .By or by seeing the same letters appended to their names by people who write them letters. As a matter of theory, this move of the Government has much to recommend it j in practice it will be found most probably to cause inconvenience and injustice. In the first place, it will deprive the public of the service, of many admirable Resident Magistrates who are not lawyers, like Mr Carew, for instance, though' in his case the retention of his office as Warden will probably prevent any personal injustice so far as he ie concerned. In the next place, tbe appointment of a solitary Resident Magistrate for a provincial district, aud the substitution of Justices of the Peace for Resident Magistrates in *uch Courts as that -.of Milton will produce all tbe evils which now and / then , arise in consequence of Resident Magistrates not being lawyers. The respectable stupids, or very far from respectable nonentities of which the roll of Justices of the Peace in the Colony is composed, will make our petty Courts of law a sight for gods and men, even when not troubled by lawyers pleading before them; whilst, on the other hand, whenever they ' have the ' benefit of a couple of qnibblers bullying, browbeating, and bamboozling them, they .will simply make confusion worse confounded. The coßtly process of appeals to the Supreme Court will turn up as an everyday occurrence, and, as if we had not law enough now, we shall have it doubled and trebled. ' Of conrse it may be said that in the absence of detail, in the telegram announcing the Government's intention, this condemnation may be premature. It is possible that when their plans are more distinctly before the pnblic, opinion as regards them may undergo modification. In the, meantime, however, there can be little or no doubt what that opinion must be at present.