Mr Lange feels proud

Press, 15 July 1985, Page 4

Mr Lange feels proud

PA Wellington The Prime Minister, Mr Lange, says the interim injunction preventing the All Blacks from leaving on the tour of South Africa made him proud to be a lawyer. Mr Justice Casey’s judgment in the High Court in Wellington on Saturday was a vindication of a society where a Government did not go “heavying” people into all sorts of undemocratic stances, Mr Lange said on Radio New Zealand’s "Insight” programme yesterday. People within rugby had been allowed to test the issue against the law. “Those people have the courage to take the action. The courts are there to determine the issues,” he said. It had been the Government’s consistent view that the tour was against the interests of New Zealand. “The Court has formed that view,” he said.

Mr Lange said he left it to the evidence given to the Court as to whether the tour would go ahead. “The people within rugby have said that it will not. I hope not too,” he said. The two lawyers who had taken the action against the Rugby Union were rugby people and had taken the proceedings at their own expense.

“They have taken the initiative themselves. They

are supported by practising lawyers in Auckland. “I am proud to know them. I am proud to be a lawyer today,” he said. The Leader of the Opposition, Mr McLay, said he was astonished at the decision. He said it had serious implications which went far beyond rugby or sport. “It amounts to judicial interference with the freedom of New Zealanders — who have committed no crime or illegal act — to leave the country. “I am not aware of any court decision in similar circumstances in any other common law or democratic country,” Mr McLay said. The Police Association’s secretary, Mr Bob Moodie, said yesterday that he believed the Rugby Union was in a similar situation to the one which confronted the Springboks after the abandoned Hamilton match in 1981.

The question then was: “Where to with the Springbok tour?” “That is the situation now with the All Blacks,” Dr Moodie said. He would like to think the High Court result could have been achieved in 1981 in the same circumstances. Dr Moodie said he found Mr Justice Casey’s approach fascinating “with a sense of relief.” The decision meant that organisations simply could not do

what they liked. “An executive must have regard to the objects of its organisation, and also to the national feeling,” he said. In 1981, after the Hamilton incident, there was “the hardnosed group of policemen who wanted to see the tour through.” He agreed there was an irony in the fact that in 1981 law and order was firmly on the side of the Rugby Union. “Now it is the other way,” he said. This year there was no sign of the violence that happened in 1981 — “perhaps because we predicted it.”

“We were all quite wrong about what was going to happen. People stayed away this time,” he said.

The anti-tour feeling this year was not as intense within the community at large, Dr Moodie said. Mr Phillip Recordon, one of the two men who sought the injunction, flew to Wellington three times last week between the birth of and surgery of his second child in Auckland.

The baby girl was born on Monday, the day Mr Recordon’s case opened in the High Court at Wellington. Anxiety doubled when the child required surgery. “It wasn’t serious, but she needed a general anaesthetic and some time in Princess Mary Hospital,”

he said. Mr Recordon called the week “the most emotionally draining and physically tiring” he had had.

“But it was also the most rewarding,” he said. Asked to describe his feelings after the decision, Mr Recordon said, “I am relieved, exhausted, very pleased but still apprehensive.”

He said that legally it was a very important decision. In Christchurch, the chairman of the Christchurch Coalition Against the Tour, Mr Glen McLennan, said the decision would mean “that blacks in South Africa will not die” because the All Blacks were in the country. “I am delighted that the decision has been made this way. The lawyers who brought this case forward deserve the highest commendation and must be praised for coming from within the rugby fraternity and bringing this matter to the highest court in the land,” he said.

Professor Tony Taylor, of Victoria University, a veteran anti-tour protester, said the decision was “an absolutely marvellous historic occasion for New Zealand. Truth, morality, and the law have come together marvellously.”

With him outside the court was a Wellington

psychologist, Dr John Hall. “John and I took part in the early marches in the 1950 s when it was ‘No Maoris, no tour.’ Now this has come together . . . this is marvellous,” he said. The spokesman for Hart, Mr John Minto, said he was delighted. “We feel that it is the right decision .. . and it is a courageous decision for the High Court to make,” he said. “We hope that ... the Court has the courage to follow this all the way through with a final decision against the tour,” he said. The Opposition spokesman on immigration, Mr Bruce Townshend (Kaimai), said the interim injunction could only be regarded as a device to halt the tour. He said the High Court had an absolute responsibility to sit as soon as posible, hear the balance of evidence, and reach a decision. An Auckland sports freedom advocate, Mr Pat Hunt, said the injunction was a bad decision. “I am amazed the Judiciary should restrict the rights and freedoms of lawabiding sportsmen to travel overseas,” he said. Mr Hunt, a member of the group, 5.P.1.R.-New Zealand, said that the ruling, “unprecedented in a Western democracy,” would make people lose faith in the Judiciary.