LYTTELTON SEAT

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27679, 8 June 1955, Page 14

LYTTELTON SEAT

Move To Establish Court ARGUMENT ON PETITION (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, June 7. The Full Court, consisting of Mr Justice Stanton, Mr Justice Hutchison, and Mr Justice McGregor, today commenced hearing argument on an orginating summons concerning the validity of the 1954 poll for the Lyttelton electorate. The summons, which was removed from the Supreme Court to the Full Court for argument, was taken out by Charles Henry Goodman, of Christchurch, a company manager, and Thomas Malcolm McGuigan, the defeated Labour Party candidate for the Lyttelton seat. The defendants named in the summons are S. T. Barnett, the Chief Electoral Officer, and Harry Robson Lake, the sitting member for Lyttelton. The summons asks for a declaratory judgment determining whether the Chief Justice is required by law to set up an Election Court for the trial of an election petition by Goodman against the election and return of Lake to Parliament at the last General Election.

The summons was taken out after a decision by the Chief Justice (Sir Harold Barrowclough) in February of this year that he had no jurisdiction to nominate an Election Court to determine the petition. Yr D. J. Hewitt, of Christchurch, is appearing for the plaintiffs, Mr J. W. Baito, of the Crown Law Office, for the’ Chief Electoral Officer, and Sir Wilfrid Sim, Q.C., with him Mr J. G. Leggat, of Christchurch, for Lake. At the opening of argument this morning, Mr Hewitt submitted that nowhere in the Electoral Act of 1927 or in the Election Petition Rules of 1951 was the Chief Justice required to inquire into preliminary matters before setting up an Election Court. Mr Hewitt submitted that once a petition had been filed the setting-up of an election Court should follow automatically, and that matters of which the Chief Justice had taken cognisance were properly matters for the Election Court.

Argument proceeded during the afternoon with submissions by Mr Bain. Mr Bain informed the Court that he appeared in the matter in something approaching a neutral capacity or as in the role of amicus curiae, deeming it his duty to place before the Court all relevant authorities.

He submitted that there were defects in the petition for an Election Court submitted by the plaintiffs in that the bond lodged was defective in form, and that the rules as to service of the petition had not been complied with, and that therefore the Chief Justice was right in refusing to exercise his jurisdiction to nominate an Election Court. The case will continue tomorrow.