Evening Post. MONDAY, APRIL 23, 1934. LAWYERS AND POLITICS

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 95, 23 April 1934, Page 8

Evening Post. MONDAY, APRIL 23, 1934. LAWYERS AND POLITICS

lAt its annual meeting held on March 22 and 23 the Council of the New Zealand Law Society passed a resolution which declared that the office of Attorney-General "should, in accordance with sound constitutional practice, be held by a barrister whose professional qualifications fit him for the position." As the resolution was carried unanimously .it is possible that there was no debate upon,it. The only opinion included in ihe official report is contained in the remark of Mr. G. G. Watson that "this office was in the hands of a layman, and to all intents and purposes in abeyance." The arrangement is plainly absurd, and except for the humour of it, which counts for something in these drab times, is quite indefensible! But the mere passing of a resolution condemning the absurdity by a professional body or any other is of very litlle value. This point is well made in the leading article which appeared in the» last number of the "New Zealand Law Journal" *(April 17):

AYe suggest that a resolution is not enough. It savours too much of si pious hope, rather than of performance. The Law Society—as we arc sure it realises —has a duty to the country as well as to the profession to educate the Government (if. education be necessary) on the subject, and to press as strongly as possible upon it the society's considered reasons for. the early appointment of some eminent member of tho Bar to the important office of AttorneyGeneral in this Dominion, which, for all practical purposes, remains vacant.

It is certainly incumbent on the Law Society to educate the country and the Government if it wants to get any change made, and it is highly probable that before doing so it will have to educate itself. Though the "New Zealand Law Journal's" article is distinctly educative, and ■ any intelligent layman may read with interest and gratitude its comprehensive review of the traditions of the office in Great Britain, it does , not seem to us to have carried the educational process far enough. There was!of course no need to waste any serious argument on the present disposition of the office in this country.

To treat the Attorney-Generalship as a sinecure or as an unnecessary adjunction to , the Executive Government is, says our -contemporary, a mere puerility, which would bo amusing if the consequence's were not of such importance. Whether the consequences are important or not, the present arrangement is puerile, but if it must be discussed seriously the "Law Journal" does well to discharge the task by the exceedingly happy quotation which appears at the head of its article. Speaking in the House of Commons on May 12, 1874, Mr. Yorke, M.P., said: There is nothing so rare or so valuable as a- good legal opinion, and it is most important for a Minister to have at hand law 'officers of the Crown to consult on any difficult question. A good legal adviser can no more be improvised than can a good theologian. The theological parallel' is a good one. So far as his qualifications are concerned, Mr. Forbes might as well have been made a Bishop as AttorneyGeneral. He is as competent to advise on a nice point in the Epistle of the Romans and the Thirty-nine Articles as on the simplest of legal poinls. He is a layman in both senses of the term, and does not pretend lo be anything else. . But the admitted incompetence of the present Attorney-General to discharge the duties of his office, and the importance of the Government's hay* ing at' its command the best legal talent.that is reasonably available do not by any means settle the question in the direction favoured by the Council of the Law Society and the "New, Zealand .Law' Journal." Tt is not a mere personal or professional issue that is at stake, but a deep and permanent issue of policy involving the status of the Attorney-General-ship and even the quality of the Bench. •If the council's resolution had merely affirmed that the office should be held, "if at all," by a barrister whose professional qualifications fit him for the position, we could all agree. Under existing conditions the substitute for Mr. Forbes would presumably be a political lawyer with a lien on the next appointment to the Bench, and probably the chief reason for the lenience with which the Prime Minister's appointment of himself lo an office for which he has no qualifications is generally regarded is that here at any rale is an Attorney-General who has no such lien, and that his lenurc of the office is fatal to the designs of the lawyer politicians to whom this lien might

be the chief attraction. In the meantime Mr. Watson's contention that in the hands of a layman the office is '"lo all intents and purposes in abeyance" is, of course, unanswerable. But we suggest that it is for the profession either to shpw that the danger to which we have referred did not produce some deplorable results in the past, or lo suggest some method by which their recurrence can be prcvcnled.

In 1865 Sir James Prcndcrgast was made Atlorney-Gcneral rJl ,but it was a non-political appointment. He served under five or six different Ministers. during the ten years for which lie held the office, and in 1875 he became Chief justice. We arc not aware that this country lias ever had a belter Attorney-General or a better Chief Justice than this excellent lawyer who doubtless would have been barred by any political lest, or that any of the Governments under which he worked could have been better served by a politician. For nearly eight years between the resignation of Sir Patrick Buckley and the appointment of Colonel Pitt the Seddon Government carried on without an Attorney-General, and if it suffered at all during the interval it was for the lack, not of competent legal advice, but- of a fighting lawyer to help it get its legislation through the House of Representatives. Since then we have had in Sir John Findlay and Sir> Francis Bell two' political Attorney-Generals'of the first rank, but they were both eminent lawyers before they were politicians, and they were both in the Legislative Council. Neither of the two political holders, of the office in recent times who used it'as a stepping-stone to the Bench would have got the appointment if there had been competition, or if the Law Society had had a say in the matter. Yet at present the Law Society is championing the old system with no suggestion of a safeguard of any kind. We have still hopes that when the present National Government abandons, its sectional adventures it may reconstruct and broaden its basis, and that its .new accessions may include a lawyer of the- first rank to lead the Legislative Council. But if he is to be made Attorney-General the danger that we have indicated must first be put out of the way.