BAY OF PLENTY BEACON Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. MONDAY, SEPT. 18, 1950 ELEMENTARY JUSTICE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 15, Issue 97, 18 September 1950, Page 4

BAY OF PLENTY BEACON Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. MONDAY, SEPT. 18, 1950 ELEMENTARY JUSTICE

A person charged with the slightest offence has the right to engage a solicitor and have the rights and wrongs of his case brought fully to light through the process of examination and cross-examination of witnesses.

But, unless something to the contrary is heard soon from the Minister of Works,- Mr Goosman, it must be presumed that the Whakatane and Tauranga Harbour Boards will not have that elementary privilege when they present their opposing cases for a deep water port. If the procedure originally set down is followed, the two Boards will present their submissions —• in writing—and will answer such questions as members of the committee have to put and neither will have the chance of answering the other’s arguments. Government reports will be considered without either body knowing what they contain.

Whatever decision the committee may make, the public Will never have before it the facts which will assure it that justice has been done.

Here is such an obvious case for a fully open inquiry that one can only wonder at the official mind which decided otherwise. Unless the full rights of open court are to be extended to both parties, why hold the inquiry at all? Why not ask both Harbour Boards to hand their submissions to the Ministry of Works and let that body decide? The so-called inquiry, .unless some official mind is changed soon, will not be an inquiry at all. It will be a fiasco and of no use whatever to the Whakatane Harbour Board. Unless the intended procedure is changed, the Whakatane Harbour Board will be wasting time in making any submissions at all.