Judge leaves for Ocean Island

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33965, 4 October 1975, Page 15

Judge leaves for Ocean Island

(N.Z.P.A. Staff Crspdt) LONDON, October 3. A High Court judge of the Chancery Division left London yesterday on a trip which will take him to view phosphate deposits in the south-west Pacific. Mr Justice Megarry. aged 65, is the judge presiding in the multi-million pound claim by the Banaban Island-, ers against the British Gov- ; ernment and others for the exploitation of phosphate > deposits on Ocean Island. He will visit the island, in the Gilbert and Ellice group, with lawyers involved in the case and his clerk, Mr Arthur Bradford. The islanders say that the

exploitation was carried out by the British Phosphate Commission, in which the New Zealand Government has a share, to keep down phosphate prices and royalties so that New Zealand and Australian farmers could get cheap fertiliser. The Banabans, 2000 in all, now live on Rabi Island in the Fiji group, but they .want to return to Ocean IsUand and form an independent State. The phosphate deposits are expected to be worked iout by 1978. The trial before Judge Megarry has already lasted 72 days. He is the first judge of any division to go overseas during the course of a trial.