Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER, 28, 1923. SELECTION OF JUDGES

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 129, 28 November 1923, Page 4

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER, 28, 1923. SELECTION OF JUDGES

The Attorney-General is a lucid and persuasive reasoner and a skilful tactician, but in his controversy with the Law Societies on the subject of appointments to the Supreme Court Bench he must surely be adjudged to have delivered himself into the hands of his opponents. His reply to the resolution passed by Societies representing more than ninety-six per cent, of the solicitors in practice and to the covering letter from the Wellington Law Society was ably and fully argued, and we do not suppose that the case for the Government's retention of the right to appoint a puisne Judge to the Chief Justiceship could have been better put. On Saturday, the reply of the Wellington Law Society was published, but we delayed dealing with it in order that we, might be able to deal with the Attorney-General's rejoinder at the same time. We regret that the letter which he has now sent to the Wellington Law Society gives us nothing to discuss. He acknowledges the receipt of the Society's letter, but, as we stated yesterday, "it is understood that as the last letter comes from one Society only, the Attorney-General holds that it is not necessary to continue the correspondence." Both the decision and theground on which it is based seem to us very much to be deplored. Technically, no doubt, the letter which Sir Francis Bell has treated in this curt fashion is the letter not of the whole profession but of a smgle Law Society. But we entirely fail to see on what ground the reasoned protest of a Society which represents nearly two hundred practising solicitors and some of the most eminent leaders of the Bar should not be treated with the same consideration and respect that the arguments of local busybodies are habitually receiving from the Government. But it is unnecessary to pursue this point since in the present case we can cite against the Attorney-General no less an authority than . -the Attorney-General , himself He should have discovered before he entered upon the argument and not in the middle of it that his correspondent does not deserve to he argued with. It is true that tfe resolution which was forwarded by the Wellington Society in its first letter had been adopted by every other Law Society but one, but the arguments to which the Attor-ney-General replied were contained not in the resolution but in the letter. If the concurrence of all these Societies in the resolution did not authorise the Wellington Society to expound the reasons for it on behalf of the profession, why did Sir Francis Bell honour it with a closely-argued reply? And if the Wellington Society had sufficient authority to state the reasons _in the first instance, why was it not authorised to defend them when attacked? In this blowing hot and cold and raising a technical objection to block an interesting and informing discussion of a matter of the first importance, the AttorneyGeneral has done himself and his cause an injustice. Further evidence of his inconsistency is supplied by the subsidiary discussion into which he entered while the principal one was in progress. His reply to the resolution of the Law Societies was criticised by a contributor to the Christchureh "Sun," and we published the Attorney-General's rejoinder on the 20th inst. This anonymous critic's defence of the Law Societies' position was not ignored on the ground that he lacked representative capacity, but the objection is regarded as fatal when the Wellington Society comes forward to back up its own arguments. What makes this differential treatment the more remarkable is that Sir Francis Bell makes a strong point of the Ohristchurch writer's failure to deal with, the English precedents cited in Sir Francis's reply to the Wellington Law Society, and that this omission is made good in a very forcible fashion by the letter which he now refuses to answer. Though both in law and politics English precedents are of incalculable value and often of irresistible authority in this country, this matter of the appointment of Judges is one on which English practice is a very dangerous guide. In England the Attorney-General is a party politician with a prescriptive right to the best place on the Bench that falls vacant during his term of office, and the Lord Chancellor actually remains a party politician after he has become the.highest judicial officer in the land. Who would like to see our own Bench tangled up with politics in this fashion 1? If these perilous precedents are disregarded, and the matter considered Irom the standpoint of principle and common sense, we believe that tho uoiiijliitsitm nL whi«h Iho losul profession bus arrived, with a, very

near approach to unanimity, will be strongly supported by lay opinion. In its second letter the Wellington Law Society quotes two striking declarations from Mr. | Massey and Mr. (now Mr. Justice) Herdman on the vital importance of keeping the Bench absolutely free from any suspicion of political influence or of susceptibility to political patronage. The pith of the Society's contention is contained in the following passage :— It has been said over and over again that the administration of justice should not only be pure, but that it should also seem pure. Similarly, in our opinion., not only s i lou ld "the Supreme Court Judges be free from political influence, but they should also seem free Jiom even the merest suggestion of such influence. That is the principle that fi' e j 9 supporting, and we are satislied that the only way in which that principle can be supported, and the pubhe confidence in and respect' for the Bench maintained, is by the adoption of the resolution previously forwarded to you. Both iv appearance and in reality the independence, the dignity, and the efficiency of the Bench will be best promoted by saying "Hands off!" to the politicians.