The Press TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 1963. Bill Of Rights

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30214, 20 August 1963, Page 12

The Press TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 1963. Bill Of Rights

The Bill of Rights is an interesting attempt to fulfil a National Party election promise. It will require more than ordinary scrutiny and perhaps amendment in some fundamental respects before it gains the political, legal, and public consent necessary if legislation of this sort is to achieve its purpose. It is extraordinarily difficult to draft legislation which by its very nature must deal with subjects already covered by legislation and defined by judicial decision. The enactment of the bill in its present form would almost certainly create far-reach-ing difficulties for the courts. The extra expense to citizens wishing to take their grievances to the courts might thereby defeat the good intentions behind the legislation. The Minister of Justice (Mr Hanan) clearly does not believe the present draft is the last word. When presenting the bill he said that Parliament should go out of its way to ascertain the views of citizens and to hear experts. To this end the bill has been referred to a select committee of Parliament, to which Mr Hanan said he expected many organisations, law societies, uni-

versity professors, the Constitutional Society, trade unions, and political parties to give evidence.

If Mr Hanan’s expectations are fulfilled, the Government should be able to assemble a large body of expert advice and opinion which would enable it to draft a bill having a broad area of popular consent. Parliament cannot bind its successors; one Government cannot stop a future Government from doing anything it wants to do. But a bill of rights backed by popular support would not lightly be set aside by any legislature. Perhaps even more useful than its future moral restraints might be its present compulsion on politicians of all shades of opinion to think about the rights of the individual citizen. Legislators make laws, as they must, for the benefit of the majority. The laws are administered, as they must be, by public servants; and the politicians see all too little of the consequences to private citizens of the laws they enact in good faith and with the best of intentions. The present bill, or some modification of it, would serve a useful purpose if it made legislators think in terms of persons as well as of people.