Restoring Civil Liberties

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24371, 25 September 1944, Page 4

Restoring Civil Liberties

V Almost six months ago, the Australian Government set up a committee outside Parliament to review war-time regulations. In the last two months the committee has issued two reports. Although the first is no less important—for it attacked the invidious principle of averment, which stands oh its head a fundamental rule in the law of evidence—the second, released recently, covers much wider ground. Within this scope it reveals, as the “Sydney Morning Herald” fairly says, that civil liberties in Australia have been trespassed on to an “alarming" extent, justifiable only in the “ most dire ” emergency. The report, of which a full version has now been received, condemns, for example, provisions enforced under the National Security Act which restrict legal representation for parties before statutory tribunals. As the committee also observes, public criticism, however unwelcome to the Government, should be restrained only when the check can be. justified as necessary in the public welfare. Nevertheless, the committee cites a regulation which “ objectionably ” restrains freedom of expression. It finds the regulation intolerable on other grounds as well; for it remarks that the British regulation, substantially identical with the Australian, was modified as long ago as 1939. A provision so long adequate for the much graver situation in Britain “is certainly all “that is necessary” in the present interests of Australian security. Powers conferred by 21 regulations to enter premises to inspect, search, and even to seize and impound are described as “ not always related to “ any apparent administrative “ necessity ”. Moreover, while four of these regulations require an inspector to produce written authority, under the remainder oral authority is sufficient, and there is no machinery to equip an inspector with any evidence of that authority. The machinery for inspection is “too loose”. Regulations affecting aliens and naturalised British subjects are, possibly, “ unduly harsh ". i British subjects by naturalisation “ should not be made subject to the “ same restrictions and disabilities “ as are applied to aliens ”. Indeed, one regulation binds “naturalised

“British subjects of enemy origin” and “enemy aliens”, but not “re“fugee aliens”. On the other hand, another requires “ refugee aliens ” to serve with “ enemy aliens ” in the Civil Alien Corps. The committee says that this is “not “proper”. The “Sydney Morning “Herald” calls it a “refinement of “ cruelty ”. Finally, the committee affirms that the citizen should be readily able to ascertain his obligations under the regulations, and finds that the methods of informing him should be “ substantially ” improved. These are a few of the committee’s recommendations, summarised in four columns of newsprint. Mr Curtin has welcomed the report, and said that 70 per cent, of the recommendations are promptly being fulfilled. The moral is one the New Zealand Government should ignore no longer. The checks on the processes by which such regulations become law are notoriously weak. The Government has done; nothing to strengthen them. The more pressing need now is to ensure that whatever could have been justified in the anxious days of the war but has since become harassing and burdensome does not remain so. The example of the Australian committee, skilled and highly sensible of its judicial responsibilities, offers the opportunity.