“LESS TALK OF MORE RESTRICTIONS IN N.Z.”

Press, Issue 29236, 21 June 1960, Page 17

“LESS TALK OF MORE RESTRICTIONS IN N.Z.”

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, June 20.

“As it is election year the Constitutional Society must redouble its efforts to convince the political parties, and politicians generally, that people will no longer tolerate the interference and State domination allowed to develop in the last 20 years,” the president, Mr J. Scott-Davidson, of Whangarei, told the annual meeting of the society in Wellington today. “The society has been engaged in making submissions to both parties represented in Parliament and we await with much interest the disclosures of election policies to see how far our representations have been accepted," he said.

“We can point with pride to the fact that there is now much less talk in political circles of more restrictions on the people and we claim that this is a direct result of the society’s activities.” A special committee had been working on the details of a written constitution. He understood that it was almost ready to report, and he believed the public would be pleased with the proposals for guaranteeing traditional freedoms and limiting the power of the State through its bureaucracy. A formula for a second chamber was also under study. The society had also demanded that all remaining war emergency regulations be removed.

During the year the society had surveyed recent legislation and uncovered a number of objectionable features. It had also begun a study of current regulations and Parliamentary bills and registered objections in a number of cases. The society had continued its attempts to secure justice for individuals who had suffered through the actions of the State and who had no right of appeal

to the courts. It appeared that the society's representations on these questions were bearing fruit, Mr Scott-Davidson said. The society had been assured by the Nationalist Party that it was studying the provision of some appeal authority for aggrieved persons sympathetically with a view to establishing or copying the Scandinavian procedure of employing a “grievance man” as a State official, or possibly adopting both systems. Mr Scott-Davidson denied that the society aimed to become another political party or that it was the tool of big business.