The Adjustment Commissions

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22491, 27 August 1938, Page 16

The Adjustment Commissions

The forecast of the Minister for Justice (the Hon. H. G. R. Mason) of the early completion of the work of the Mortgage Adjustment Commissions redirects attention to one of the most extraordinary pieces of legislation ever placed upon a British Statute Book. In the name of justice to one section of the community, already, according to the Minister's own statement a few weeks ago,, an amount of nearly £5,000,000 has been written off the debt owed by that sec-

tion, mortgagors, to another section, comprising mortgagees and sundry other creditors: The amount, stupendous though it is, is not the most remarkable aspect of the affair. What is remarkable is that a British community should have, with so little protest, submitted to having filched from it one of its allegedly most cherished rights, the right to have justice administered in open Court, each case being tried upon evidence publicly given in accordance with established rules. A recent correspondent in " The Press " put the case succinctly and well when he said:

It is not enough that justice shall be done, it must be seen to be done, so that the working of the law may be freely discussed and thus receive the sanction of public opinion. It is a lamentable thing and a grave reflection upon our democracy that this act has been accepted without widespread .protest, for its administration runs counter to all the established principles of justice. Its administration is in the hands of commissions, who sit in secret, charged by Statute with the duty of assisting one class, and one class only, debtors who have, the good fortune to be mortgagors, lessees, or guarantors. These commissions are bound by no established rules of procedure, they may and do accept evidence given without the sanction of an oath, and even their decisions are not made public. We loudly protest at the loss of individual right and the secret trials of other countries—is our own state any better?

None of this is a reflection on the commissions. They have, without doubt, done their work to the best of their ability and with a due sense of their heavy responsibility. But it is a reflection, and a very grave reflection, upon the law as they have been called upon to administer it. It is a wilful departure from the canons under which justice has always been impartially and fairly administered under the British legal system since the abolition of the Star Chamber. The damage is now done but it would be. disastrous to think that it had established .a precedent for similar proceedings. The public should realise, once and for all, that a great wrong has been done a great number of their fellow citizens. If only from a purely selfish point of view, they should understand that it is in their best interests to see that the principle of fair trial in open court is restored and that such methods are not permitted to be introduced under similar legislation in the future.