Judges Confer In Rhodesia

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31755, 12 August 1968, Page 13

Judges Confer In Rhodesia

(N.Z P.A.-Reuter —Copyright)

SALISBURY, August 11.

Rhodesia’s nine High Court judges have spent a day in private conference, faced with the question of whether to recognise the legality of the 32-month-old lan Smith Government.

Five judges have already stated their view that the pre-independen.-e constitution has no validity in Rhodesia today meaning that they accept the legality of the Government. But whethe. the remaining four will make their position clear after yesterday's con-science-searching cession was not immediately known. Court officials said no official statement would be made, but individual judges might make private statements about their own conclusions. One of the four, Mr Justice Dendy Young, of Bulawayo, has already strongly hinted that he might resign rather than continue to serve if the present Government disavows British legr.l authority in Rhodesia.

The issue was brought into sharp foe - on Friday by another judge, Mr Justice H. E. Davies, at the start of a trial of 32 Africans later convicted of possessing arms of war and sentenced to death.

He ruled against a defence submission at the start of the case that the Court was bound to accept a Privy Council ruling in London last month that all post-independ-ence laws of the Government were illegal. Emphasising that his ruling was a persona', view, he also said that he believed the Government had achieved internal de jure status, rather than the de facto status previously granted it under a decision of the appellate division of the Rhodesian High Court.