HEWART’S MAXIMS

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXIV, Issue 11932, 25 January 1936, Page 4

HEWART’S MAXIMS

JUDGE ESSENTIALLY PARASITE Lord Hewart, the Lord Chief Justice of England, gave some amusing examples of legal problems when speaking at the annual dinner of the Chartered Institute of Patent Agents, recently. “It doss not often fall to my lot to try patent cases,” he said. “I am far more frequently concerned with the question ot a stationary motor-car coming into cillision with another stationary motor-car, when each was on its proper side, well lighted, and was keeping a good look-out.” Maxims which Lord Hewart advanced about the law were: The only impartiality possible to the human mind is that which arises from understanding neither side ot the case. A judge is essentially a parasite, because lu a perfect world judges will not be necessary, and for something like 799 million years the world got on very well without them. The business of a judge is to bold his tongue until the last possible moment, and to try to be as wise as ho is paid to look. Lord Hewart recalled that once, when at Winchester Assizes, he visited a hospital for pensioners, he asked one of them how he passed his time. “Sometimes we sit and think and sometimes we just sit,” was the reply. "That is a perfect description of a judge's day,” said Lord Hewart. Speaking of British freedom, Lord Hewart said: “I do not think the people of this country are so much in love with the methods of a Hitler or a Mussolini that they desire to hand over their affairs to a dictator, controlling a muzzled Press and a tame Bench. “Without independence a judge would be a danger, but happily our judges arc hi a fully independent position.”