PRIVY COUNCIL

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25449, 22 March 1948, Page 3

PRIVY COUNCIL

VALUE OF RIGHT OF APPEAL

ADDRESS BY DR. MAZENGARB “The Press” Special Service WELLINGTON, March 21.

The hope that New Zealand would not take the same step as Canada had done in 1940 in abolishing the right of appeal to the Privy Council was expressed by Dr. O. C. Mazengarb, K.C.. when addressing the Wadestown and Highland Park Men’s!? Society. Dr. Mazengar|a said he hoped that the prerogative right of the King to admit appeals from this Dominion would remain.

Several cases had been taken to the Privy Council from New Zealand where the decisions of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal had been reversed, Dr. Mazengarb said. In one case where a jury’s verdict had been disregarded by the Court q 4 Appeal as perverse, the Privy Council had come to the conclusion that there was nq trace of perversity and that the jury’s answers had shown a nice discrimination. At the head of the legal system of the country was Parliament. It was said to be the highest Court in the land, but where there was a written Constitution, this was not necessarily true. “Sometimes it is said that a written Constitution incommodes Parliament. but there are advantages; and sometimes I think it would be bdtter for the Courts to have more say than they are allowed in New Zealand, for, after all, they are the guardians of our justice.” Dr. Mazengarb explained the way in which the Australian Parliament was prevented by its Constitution from acquiring property except on “just terms.” There the Courts were always available to protect the owner from suffering injustice if his land was taken by the Government. “It might well be thought that it was a weakness in the Constitution of our Dominion that there was no similar restriction on the powers of Parliament,” he said.