PURITY OF JUSTICE.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1142, 1 June 1911, Page 4

PURITY OF JUSTICE.

"A DASTARDLY VIOLATION."-

"It is an absolutely iniquitous thing, • said Mr. F.'JI. B. Fisher, M.P., in Ins political address to the electors of Wellington last evening, "to placo on the Estimates large suras of money to bo paid to the Chief Justice of Now Zealand." It was the fashion, Mr. lisher continued, in handling this matter, to hold up your hands in holy horror, deprecate any attack on the Chief Justice, and say he has never been known to do wrong. "Who is paying that he has done wrong?" asked Mr. Fisher. 'I don't; I say that the Government was wrong in making theso payments. Somo day there may be a Judge who is not so clean and so spotless as Sir Robert Stout. Ho may be given money for a specific purpose, and that purposo may bo served.

"It made me wish I was Chief Justice to tee the votes on the Estimates," continued Mr. Fisher, amid laughter. Ho added that the Chief Justice received £2000 a year in the shape of official salary. While the Chief Justice was engaged upon tho Native Land Commission, Mr. Button, of Auckland, was paid ■£1747 to do tho ordinary work of tho Chief Justice. For his services on tho commission and for expenses, tho latter was paid in all JS-1019, in addition to his salary of £2000. An old lady in the audience hero said something about tho Chief Justice r«ceiv» ing <C 250 a year when ho was a schoolmaster.

"It is degrading to our public life," continued Mr. Fisher, amid applause, "that such payments should bo made to the Chief Justice." If the payments wero right, he continued, why was not Justice Edwards paid for his services on the Meikle Commission? And if Justice Edwards should have been paid why not someone else? The very essenco of tho purity of justice was the Statute which! said that tho salary of the Chief Justico should be fixed and unalterable, and that the puisno judges should not bo promoted, so that tho Government had no power to offer them favours. "It was a violation, and a dastardly violation of the principles of the purity of tho Supremo Court Bench," declared Mr. Fisher, "that this Government should have had the impertinence to make theso payments, and that Sir Robert Stout should have had the bod judgment to accept them." (Loud and prolonged applause.) Leaving the subject, Mr. Fisher remarked that the Chief Justice had received .£1419 for services in connection with Statutes revision. Tho samo work had been performed in Victoria by the Chief Justice of that State (Mr. Htggiiioottoni), but the Clm'i Justico of Victoria had refused to tako payment.