The Dominion SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1928. A LINK OF EMPIRE

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 52, 24 November 1928, Page 8

The Dominion SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1928. A LINK OF EMPIRE

During the debate in the House of Commons on the appointment of two members of the Privy Council, Sir Hamar Greenwood said that as the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council was the strongest link of Empire it needed strengthening. He also remarked that the Canadian view was that the Judicial Committee ought not to depend on aged jurists, who, however eminent in their prime, no longer impressed litigants and counsel from the Dominions and This view is also held in Australia, and the experience of the Commonwealth Attorney-General gives some ground in support. On his last visit to England to conduct an appeal befoie the Privy Council he found, so the story runs, that he had taken a ten thousandmile journey to talk to a Committee, three of whose members were sound asleep during the hearing. All the members the Judicial Committee have distinguished legal careers behind them, but e physical and mental faculties must necessarily be impaired when such advanced ages as 77 to 83 years have been reached, as is the case with some of the members. . When Mr. Myers, K.C., returned a year or two ago from his successful appearances before the Privy Council, he mentioned the imposition of a compulsory retiring age in respect to members or that body as one of the changes likely soon to occur. innovation, however, seems slow in coming into operation. It has been in the minds of lawyers for a long time now. . Sir Edward Clarke, speaking in. 1908, said:. I sincerely hope that before the Government reaches its end it will have effected a work dangerously long delayed already—the creation of a Supreme Court for the Empire which shall not only be strong by the strength of its personal constitution, but by the dignity of its ceremonial, and even by the splendour of its surroundings, shall command the respect and affect the imagination of our brethren in the British colonies beyond the seas.” The work which Sir Edward Clarke considered so long delayed in 1908 still remains to be done two decades after. The Government of which he spoke has long gone out of existence, and several of its successors have followed it into oblivion. But the . Privy Council, the one remaining functioning link under the Sovereign, in this vast and loosely-knit Empire continues to be composed of able jurists long since past their prime. The Judicial Committee does not hold the place it should in the esteem of Dominion lawyers. Its status is undoubtedly high, but not as high as it would be were its members in all cases men still possessed of the full mental and physical powers and able to perform their tasks unhandicapped by the disabilities of extreme age. It is perhaps too much to expect a people, wedded to middle courses as are the English, to take any extreme steps, but the imposition of a compulsory retiring age would be very generally approved.