Sir Robert supports motion

Press, 7 August 1985, Page 6

Sir Robert supports motion

PA Wellington A notice of motion on behalf of the businessman, Mr Bob Jones, for discovery of documents against a nonparty, the Security Intelligence Service, had been supported by Sir Robert Muldoon, the High Court at Wellington has been told. The motion is an interim application by Mr Jones, the New Zealand Party candidate for the Ohariu electorate, in 1984, the claim by Sir Robert against him for $300,000 damages for defamation. Judgment was' reserved by Mr Justice Eichelbaum. In support of the motion, Mr Mike Camp, Mr Jones's counsel, said that it was clear that the significance in the timing of the various reports to and from Sir Robert (at the time he was Prime Minister and Minister in charge of the 5.1.5.) would be relevant to the case, “and the sort of thing if we were not involved in issues with the Crown would undoubtedly be properly discoverable and would have been discovered as between the parties.” Mr Camp said that there was a supplementary affidavit in which Sir Robert acknowledged that a report in question was once in his possession, but consistent with the policy in relation to such a document it was returned to its author, the 5.1.5., after being read. Mr Camp said that under the Security Intelligence Service Act the Minister in charge of the service had

the power to direct the director who was under his control. “In in my submission that is a very unusual circumstance we are in here today, that by virtue of someone leaving office what would have normally been before the Court for discovery no longer is.” Mr Camp submitted that from a review of the origins of the rule of non-discovery against the Crown it could be shown, among other things, that: ® Most of the cases really rested on interpretation of statutory provisions. Z The authorities had rarely, if at all, been exhaustively examined. © To allow of a prerogative philosophy that treated acts of the Sovereign as irresistible and absolute was to be hampered by past ghosts. Mr Camp said there was no doubt that there could well be a proper class or category in true security work and that the documents in question should not fall within such a category. “The subject of them is not Intelligence in any real sense,” he said. “The subject is supposed to be that no S.I.S. infiltration occurred within the New Zealand Party, nor any impersonation ... the ground taken precludes any assessment of justification and means no litigant can ever hope to know what the S.I.S. did or did not do.” Mr Des Dalgety. Sir Robert’s counsel, said his client supported the grant-

ing of Mr Jones's motion. “At the heart of the case is the Security Intelligence Service." he said. “Sir Robert was its Minister. Mr Jones alleges he misused his powers in respect of the service, and if that were right the service also misused those powers." Mr Dalgety said the S.I.S. and its Minister had the power to bug offices if New Zealand security was in

issue. To use those powers for political purposes would be a grave misuse of power. In that situation it would be important at the trial that the jury was satisfied Sir Robert and Mr Jones both got an even start. "Sir Robert has seen a report and apparent!} - seen other reports," he said. "Mr Jones has not, so that is not an even start. It is not going

to assist Sir Robert if Mr Jones is seen to be at a disadvantage by the jury." For the 5.1.5., Mr Ross Elliott said that if the Court found there was no jurisdiction to make the order sought — and he submitted that there was not — then it need not consider the matters raised in the director's affidavit. The S.I.S. opposed the motion.