BICAMERAL SYSTEM

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29269, 29 July 1960, Page 8

BICAMERAL SYSTEM

Reform For N.Z. Argued

(New Zealand Press Association/ DUNEDIN, July 28. The way was open for a majority of the House of Representatives to play ducks and drakes with the administration of justice as well as with the expenditure of money, Dr. O. C. Mazengarb told a Dimedin audience this evening. The meeting, arranged by the Constitutional Society, heard Dr. Mazengarb’s arguments in favour of a second chamber and a written constitution for the Dominion.

The power to dismiss the Audi-tor-General or a judge might never be used, he said, but while it existed, the threat to use it might be just as effective to compel a resignation, especially if such a threat was accompanied by hints that retiring allowances or other concessions might be withheld.

“There is an understandable reluctance to restore a second chamber. Dr. Mazengarb said. “No Government looks kindly upon any change which will curb its powers, and the Opposition in a Legislature of only two parties looks forward to becoming the Government. That is why various specious difficulties are being raised regarding the composition of another house and the functions it should perform.” On a return to bicameral government it would be desirable to ensure its continuance by embodying the new provisions in a writteh constitution, he continued. Judicial Tribunal

Even those reforms could not give all the protection needed, and a way had still to be found to deal with some injustices the Legislature had been unable or unwilling to prevent. One of the Constitutional Society’s aims was to vest in a judicial tribunal power to disallow any bureaucratic decision not just and equitable. A constitutional court, or the Supreme Court in a special constitutional jurisdiction, would be an ideal body to determine, free from political interference, and under expert technical advice, the amount of money to be created by the Reserve Bank or the trading banks in any year, said Dr. Mazengarb. “The constitutional changes 1 have been urging have a greater importance than the comparatively trivial things now in the armoury of the National Party,” he concluded. “If. the party would get back to the grand principles it espoused tn 1949—lower living costs and freedom from bureaucratic restrictions—the result of the election would not be in doubt. Their failure to admit where they went wrong and to stand firm on principle is causing many supporters to fear their success at the polls, even as much, as they fear the continuation of office of the Labour Party.”