Peace Role Seen For N.Z. Lawyers

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31032, 12 April 1966, Page 1

Peace Role Seen For N.Z. Lawyers

New Zealand lawyers could show the way in promoting the administration of justice and international harmony in Southeast Asia, the president of the American Bar Association (Mr Edward W. Kuhn) said in Christchurch yesterday.

“A 7 ou people in New Zealand and Australia are governed more by law than your neighbours,” he said, “and by promoting the notions of law and order you will play a notable part in fostering world peace.”

These ideas will be the theme of an address Mr Kuhn will give to the annual conference of the Law Society in Dunedin later this week. Mr Kuhn said he would like to see New Zealand and Australian lawyers take the initiative in establishing a Far Eastern Regional Bar Association, with a membership from countries between Iran and Japan through the Indies to New Zealand. Similar associations existed in the western hemisphere for the Americas and in Europe. They gave lawyers the opportunity to exchange ideas on the administration of justice and on protecting and

helping the people of those countries.

Mr Kuhn visited Japan. Thailand, Hong Kong and Australia before arriving in Christchurch. He spoke to lawyers in those countries about the international association for the area and about the legal ramifications of the Asian Development Bank established in Manila. INVITATION

While attending the conference in Dunedin. Mr Kuhn will invite New Zealand lawyers to attend the 1967 conference of the American Bar Association, to be held in Honolulu.

Mr Kuhn gave up his practice as a private lawyer to concentrate on his duties as president of the American association.

“It has given me the opportunity to do something fof the nation and the world.” he said.

Speaking about the differences in procedure in American and British courts, Mr Kuhn said he had found the latter.to be much more dignified.

“But remember. we are a young country, and in the course of time the refinements of the British courts may come into ours. USE OF DOCK Mr Kuhn was bewildered when asked his opinion of the practice of placing a person on trial for a criminal offence in a dock. “It is not done in America. It might have been in the colonial days when things were pretty wild. “But English lawyers might be quite happy about it. 1 don’t know. I have never thought about it- Our practice is to place the person on trial in the seat behind his counsel." Mr Kuhn said he forsaw the gradual erosion of state laws until the time came when there would be total Federal law in the United States.

“This is about 200 years away, but it will come. I believe, and will be beneficial to the nation as a whole," he said.

Mr Kuhn is the 89th president of the American association, which has 300.000 members. He will relinquish the post next July and cannot be re-elected. He has been practising law in Memphis, Tennessee.