CASES OF HARDSHIP

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 142, 13 December 1933, Page 10

CASES OF HARDSHIP

POWER TO GIVE RELIEF

WORKING OF THE LAW

The impossibility .of altering the law to meet the particular circumstances of every case brought before a Judge or -Magistrate was commented on by Mr. Justice Blair at tho Supreme Court yesterday when a woman complained that she had suffered injustice in connection with an application for relief under the Mortagors and Tenants Relief Act. The application was consid ered-by the late Mr. T. B. McNeil, S.M., who declined to grant it.' "I take it that Mr. McNeil decided that case as he decided dozens and dozens of others in a similar capacity," said his Honour. "It should bo appreciated that Judges and Magistrates when deciding a. case have to look further ahead than the actual case under consideration, for the decision which is arrived at will be used as a basis for future cases. The result is that Judges and Magistrates have to follow some system in their judgments, and I have not the slightest doubt that as far as this particular Magistrate was concerned he waa working on a principle which he found to give substantial justice in the majority of cases. The law gets the reputation of being an ass through the sayings of senseless people who overlook this, fact, that tho only cases .that ever come before the Courts are the cases whore the law seems to work a- hardship. The people who think they have suffered a hardship then' want to alter tho law, overlooking, the fact that if the law was altered to meet ono particular hard caso it might have the effect of working injustice in 99 cases out of 100." .Referring to the consideration that had, been given by the Magistrate to the woman's application his Honour said that she was lucky enough to have it heard hy the most sympathetic Magistrate in New Zealand. "My experience of Mr. Mc'Neil," said his Honour, "was that he had the softest heart of any Magistrate in Wellington, and lawyers used to like going before him, for they used to get sympathetic treatment for people in your position. Hih Honour eventually dismissed the woman's claim. The woman conducted her 'own case, stating that she did not have enough money to employ counsel. In dismissing the case his Honour said that no lawyer would take a case which he kriew perfectly well was absolutely a baseless claim. There would have been no difficulty in getting a hundred lawyers to take tho caso if there had been any chance of success.