Sutch case to go to court, says Dr Finlay

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33671, 22 October 1974, Page 3

Sutch case to go to court, says Dr Finlay

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, October 21. " The Attorney-General (Dr Finlay) has consented to further proceedings being taken against Dr William Ball Sutch under the Official Secrets Act.

In a statement today. Dr Finlay said he had made his decision “with a heavy heart and after much reflection” and said he had been “driven to what I have concluded is my duty.” Dr Finlay’s statement gave a detailed explanation of why he had authorised the prosecution. In it, he made it clear that meetings between Dr Sutch and a foreign diplomat had been observed not because Dr Sutch was being watched but because the diplomat was under surveillance. Dr Sutch had supplied information on the meetings and “what on the face of it appears to be a melodrama may turn out to be a farce.”

“But I cannot assume that it will,” said Dr Finlay. The Attorney-General said he had authorised further proceedings because he was satisfied that the material presented to him warranted further consideration in open court by the production, examination and cross-exam-ination of appropriate witnesses with a view to determining whether any offence under the act had been committed and whether any act “prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State” had been committed. Dr Finlay said the Official Secrets Act was undeniably a restrictive, even oppressive act. It imposed a heavy burden on a defendant and one that might be difficult to discharge. He had to bear this in mind in granting or

withholding permission to proceed. In this case the police had put before the Minister information (it should not be called evidence, as its substance and admissibility must remain open to challenge). “Encounters” It suggested that encounters (to use a neutral word) took place in circumstances that were unusual. “I feel at liberty to refer to these because material supplied by Dr Sutch acknowledges and refers to at least some of these, though I hasten to add that it is for the purpose of proffering an explanation for them,” said Dr Finlay, “The encounters themselves carry no weight with me. The act does say in effect that anybody who has visited, consorted or associated with a foreign agent (which includes the employee of any foreign power) may be called upon to prove the innocence of his association. “For my part I must say that an open ordinary commitment of this kind would arouse no suspicion in my mind, and would certainly not incline me to ask for an explanation from anybody who had, even frequently visited a ‘foreign agent’. Pattern “When, however, I am confronted with a pattern of meetings at unusual times and places I am bound to look more closely at an act of Parliament which (whatever may be my private feelings about it) I am sworn to uphold.” Dr Finlay said the act contained wide-ranging words and he was not prepared to comment on t iem except to say that the information as to the meetings

he had mentioned was supplemented by certain other material which he assumed could properly be put in evidence. “As to the conduct, I have to ask myself, am I satisfied that the explanation satisfactorily accounts for all the events involved in the meetings, and was that explanation given how and when it might have been expected, so that the whole episode is reduced to a humdrum everyday level and therefore nothing out of the ordinary? Responsibility “As I have said, the meetings of which I have been informed are not fully covered in Dr Sutch’s letter, and in any case I question whether it is my function to come to a final conclusion like this unless it is self-evi-dent and beyond all doubt. “What appears on the face of it to be melodrama may turn out to be farce, but I cannot assume that it will.” Dr Finlay said he had considered English precedents and while some of them were dubious, he deemed it his responsibility to make the decision and he therefore had not consulted any other Cabinet Ministers. Diplomat watched Dr Finlay concluded by saying: “The encounters I referred to early in this memorandum were observed as a result of surveillance carried out, not on Dr Sutch, but on a foreign diplomat. “This raises questions far outside my area of responsibility and I should properly make no comment but I feel obliged to say that if assaults on the integrity of the State are to be guarded against, there seems to be ground for assuming they will emanate from any one, or any particular quarter.”