Delay Sought In Fluoridation

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30393, 18 March 1964, Page 18

Delay Sought In Fluoridation

The Waimairi County Council is being asked to defer its decision on fluoridation of the county water supply until the Privy Council has given its decision on an appeal on the legality of fluoridation. The request is being made in a letter from the chairman of the Waimairi Action Group (Mr J. L. Milburn). The council is to consider the question of fluoridation again tomorrow.

The letter refers to the appeal by a Lower Hutt group and says it seems desirable that unnecessary litigation should be avoided, and that where such expense is involved one decision of the highest court should suffice for all. “As you know, this group represents a number of persons in the county who hold the view that there should be no compulsory fluoridation of

the county’s water supply. We have been advised, and believe it to be beyond dispute, that legally there is no distinction between the proposal to fluoridate the water supply in Waimairi County and the legality or otherwise of the present fluoridation measures taken in Lower Hutt,” the letter says.

Lower Hutt Scheme

“As you are no doubt also aware, the Supreme Court held the Lower Hutt City scheme to have been authorised by law and so, also, did the New Zealand Court of Appeal by its decision of December 13, 1963. But this decision was reached by a majority and, as we understand, each of the four Judges who have considered the matter have arrived at their conclusions for different reasons.

“In the Court of Appeal, neither of the two City Judges who found in favour of Lower Hutt City did so for the same reasons as Mr Justice McGregor did in the Supreme Court, and at least one of those Judges acknowledged that in coming to his conclusion in favour of the Lower Hutt City he was differing from the decision of a Canadian court of at least equal authority in a case which was, we understand, practically indistinguishable in law from the New Zealand case.

“It is clear, we are advised, from the judgments given in the Court of Appeal, that the matter is still very far from being free from doubt.

“We are associated to some extent with other groups throughout the country in our opposition to compulsory fluoridation. We have been advised that the unsuccessful appellants in the Lower Hutt City case are appealing to the Privy Council and that the appeal has a reasonable chance of succeeding. “Perhaps it might be mentioned that the Judge who gave the minority judgment in the Court of Appeal gave his decision (which we have no doubt he is fully qualified to give) fully as firmly as did the two Judges who formed the majority.”