RETIRED COLONELS

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 237, 4 July 1938, Page 8

RETIRED COLONELS

Right To Proper Inquiry OPINION OF BARRISTER Dominion Special Service. Auckland, July 3. Thu view that Colonels A. S. Wilder, C. H. Spragg, It. F. Gambrill and N. L. Macky, who have been posted to the retired list, were entitled as of right to an inquiry and that the latter was mandatory under the Defence Act, was expressed to-day .by an Auckland barrister, Mr. L. P. Leary, who in the latter part of the Great War period was lecturer in military law at the Royal Artillery Cadet School at Exeter, England. It was fundamental, in both military and civil law, said Mr. Leary, that anyone charged with an offence had a right to a proper inquiry, in which he could put forward his defence and, if ho were found guilty, submit anything likely to affect punishment. This right in New Zealand appeared to lie governed by section 69 of the Defence Act, 1909, relating to courts of inquiry. The section stated : ‘‘Where a charge or complaint is preferred against any commissioned officer of the Defence Forces, such officer may be placed under arrest by the senior officer present, and such charge or complaint shall, with all convenient speed, be heard before a court of inquiry constituted as hereinbefore provided.” The succeeding section laid down that the duties of every court of inquiry should be confined to taking evidence on oath and reporting thereou to the proper quarters. It was true that some regulations made under the authority of the Defence Act seemed, when read superficially, to give some sort of summary power, but the Act stated expressly that the power to make regulations under it was limited to regulations not inconsistent with the Act itself. It seemed clear that the provisions of the Act as to an inquiry were mandatory, and it seemed that they had been evaded.