"THE SPIRIT OF THE ACT"

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 36, 11 August 1921, Page 6

"THE SPIRIT OF THE ACT"

Is the spirit of lawlessness from which the whole world is suffering as a result of the war to invade the Bench and to ..induce our Courts to violate the plain words of a statute at their own . sweet' will ? The extraordinaryi procedure of the Court of Arbitration at Invercargill a fortnight ago, if correctly interpreted as reported in yesterday's issue, suggests that this question is not a matter for conjecture and prophecy, but may be definitely answered in the affirmative. So far as that Court is concerned, the suggested invasion has already taken place. There was ,no room for doubt as to the meaning and effect of the law which had to be administered, nor did the Court,'or any member of it, suggest that there was. The power of revising an award conferred upon the Arb' tration Court by the War Legislation Act of 1918, as amended by an Act -passed last year, is expressly declared to be exercisable only in the event of a change in the conditions affecting the industry, or an increase in the cost of living " since the date of\ the award." Nothing could well be plainer thaji the limitation apparently imposed by. these words and the Supreme Court Judges... to whom the point was referred decided that the effect of the clause was that the Court legally could only take into consideration increases in the cost of living since the date of the award. ' But on the ground that to follow this ruling and 1 abide by' the plain wordß of the statute woulcL, result in " very serious injustice to large bodies of workers," the Arbitration Court, it is reported, decided to ignore the ruling and the statute, and to break the law which it is sworn to administer. To talk of the need " to fulfil the spirit rather than the letter of> the Act" is flimsy camouflage. Parliament and the Supreme Court have decided the matter definitely in one way, and the Arbitration Court has apparently deliberately preferred the other. The question is one not of the spirit versus the letter,; but* of t-he spirit of the law-breaker versus that which has hitherto governed all our public institutions, and of which our Courts have hitherto been regarded as the inviolable safeguards and repositories.. If the Courts themselves are to be allowed to break the vlaw with impunity, what ajiout humbler offenders ? and where are we to turn for protection? Quis <justodiet ipsos custodes?