IMPERIAL LAW APPEAL

Evening Post, Volume LXXXII, Issue 26, 31 July 1911, Page 8

IMPERIAL LAW APPEAL

— ■ ■»' ■ ACTION BY THE CONFERENCE. AN UNSATISFACTORY EXPERIMENT/ ■ (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, 16th Jtme. The debate on the proposition of New Zealand with regard to the gioposed Imperial Court of Appeal elicited the fact that what has been clone so far in this direction has not been an unqualified success. New Zealand's suggestion, it will be remembered, was that a judge from each of the Dominions should bo permanently or '^c Privy Council for *the 'purpose of 1. n oversea appeals. As the outline o debate the Conference approved, tho tjonerai" principle that there should be one Imperial Court of final appeal, but that it should consist of two branches-^- ■ ono to deal with appeals from the tfnitei Kingdom, and the othsr with appeals from the Oversea Dominions ; that the procedure should be something similar to that of the present Privy Couhcil, except that the single" judgment should be abandoned for the practice dn vogut» ,jn the House of Lords. Under the existing system provisioa w iha&« for the appointment of oversea judges to sit in the Privy Council, and five such appointments haVe actually been made, viz., Lord VilHere, Sir S. Griffiths, Sir Samuel Way, SirJSdmund' Barton, and a Canadian. Canada, Australia, and South Africa are thus represented, but there has-been" no appointment for New Zealand. , Asked- how,. 'than omusioa, came, about, Dr. EHndlay-said as a matter of fact the Lord Chancellor of England and the Prime Minister w«e both quite willing that such appointments should be made .if desired, but it was frankly admitted by the Imperial authorities that- the scheme liaS beta something of a failure. Some of 'the judges appointed to the Privy . Council had never sat at all;, Others had not sat for eleven years. Although South Africa had paid the expenses of Loftt 'Villiers for some years to bs in England te sit on South African cases, there had been no regular sittings. - "Thett it does not look." I suggested. 1 , "as if the thing will be carried any further." Dr. Firidlay said the idea Mr. AesquitlT ' entertained eeemed to be_that New Zealand appeals should be. fixed for dates which would ■enable judges to be sent* ■Home fo sit in the Privy Council when •they were heard, but in view of the distance, and "the time that would be 'occupied in travelling this proposal also did not eeem a very satisfactory on».