CONSTITUTIONAL SOCIETY

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28642, 19 July 1958, Page 16

CONSTITUTIONAL SOCIETY

Executive Outlines Policy

“When a party is elected on certain promises and it finds that it cannot give effect, to them without upsetting the whole economic system, then that party is in honour bound to tell the people that it cannot fulfil its promises without endangering the economy of the country and face the people again,” said the Constitutional Society’s chief executive officer (Mr J. H. Luxford » in Christchurch yesterday. Of import controls, Mr Luxford said that a crisis had arisen and something had to be done. The path taken by the Government was in keeping with the socialist doctrine of controls and restrictions.

“When the Budget was announced, the whole atmosphere changed overnight,” he said. “It added to the powers of bureaucracy and added to the restrictions ahd controls of the socialist State. The Constitutional Society is alerted. Since the Budget, the society has had many requests to protect the people from the anomalies of taxation. “Just taxes should be fixed by law,” said Mr Luxford. “Too much is left to the discretion of the Commissioner of Taxes. Discretionary decisions are bad in principle.” He said that a taxpayer’s protection branch of the society would be established in Wellington. It would be directed by a man. well-skilled in tax law and tax procedure and he would study all aspects of taxation, without, howbver, competing in any way with experts and accountants already engaged in protecting their own clients. Taxpayers’ Protection

“We know we have all got to contribute,” said Mr Luxford, “but relentless injustices .can Gpme when laws are administered to the letter and not to the spirit.’’ The establishment of a taxpayers’ protection branch had become even more urgent since the introduction of the Budget.

An important phase of the society’s work concerned investigation into decisions by departmental heads and similar authorities where there was no right of appeal to a court of law, he said. Many matters had been taken up with Ministers which involved decisions made at the “dictates of bureaucrats,” he said. Facts were given to the society in detail, and he was often surprised that they were given in such detail. * Most illogical statements were often revealed in them.

“In a number of cases the hard wall of bureaucracy has been pierced,” he said. “We feel that we have to do something positive and take action to see that individual liberties are no longer at the whim of the particular party which may be in power.”