WOMEN ON THE BENCH

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26058, 10 March 1950, Page 2

WOMEN ON THE BENCH

Concern at a decision, made at the conference of the Federation of the New Zealand Justices’ Association, was expressed at a meeting of the Christchurch branch of the National Council of Women last evening. It was reported -that there were only two women delegates at the conference, and a remit, from Auckland, concerning women and children was not carried. The remit asked that the Government be urged to appoint women special honorary justices to sit on the Bench with the presiding Magistrate when cases involving husbands and wives, women and girls, and children were being dealt with. Miss E. Cardale, who for 29| years was welfare officer for the Society for the Protection of Women and Child 7 ren, and in that capacity attended sittings of the Court at least once a week, gave a review of the class of cases at which, she felt strongly, a woman justice should sit with the presiding Magistrate. She said that she thought it would be generally conceded that an improvement had been effected in the Children’s Court by the presence of a male and a female justice on the Bench with the presiding Magistrate. It was decided that the National Council should seek the opinion of its constituent bodies on the question of women justices sitting on the Bench with Magistrates.

Under the will of Miss Jane Mander, the noted New Zealand novelist, who died recently, part of a collection of volumes of art have been presented to the Whangarei Public Library. These books have been handed to the library by Miss Mander’s sister, Mrs J. Cross, of Whangarei.