Lawyers decry use of J.P.s

Press, 24 November 1986, Page 6

Lawyers decry use of J.P.s

PA Auckland Justices of the Peace should not sit on cases where people are charged with serious crimes, lawyers say. They say Justices are not competent to preside over preliminary hearings into serious charges. “The quality of justice would be improved if J.P.s did not preside,” said the Criminal Bar Association’s president, Mr Peter Williams.

"I had a case where one of the J.P.s was actually stone deaf — he couldn’t hear a word that was said.” Justices of the Peace decide whether cases in-

eluding murder should go to trial. Mr Williams said some Auckland Justices of the Peace were good, but their country counterparts tended to take the word of the police prosecutor. He labelled their job, “an anachronism” which was kept on by the Justice Department only to take the pressure off District Court judges.

Some law reformers believed there should be qualified law registrars to advise J.P.s. But the Law Society’s vice-president. Mr Colin Pidgeon, Q.C.. said that the British system would not work in New Zealand because New Zealand court officers were looked on

and treated as clerks. He backed Mr Williams' view that J.P.s were legally under-qualified for controlling serious cases. Mr Pidgeon said they should be limited to sitting on minor cases such as traffic offences. The Auckland president of the Justices of the Peace Association, Mr Norman King, said his members were trained through correspondence courses and could ask judges for advice. “We carry out our responsibilities as fully as we can.”

In the first six months this year, Auckland J.P.s heard more than 89,000 charges.