RIGHTS OF JUSTICES

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 92, 20 April 1938, Page 11

RIGHTS OF JUSTICES

ISSUE RAISED IN COURT

Strong objection to an application by the police that a case in which a man w?!s charged with being intoxicated while in charge of a car should be held over until a Magistrate was on the bench was taken by Mr. O. G. Stevens, counsel for the accused, in the Dunedin City Police Court on Monday, states the "Otago Daily Times." The Court was presided over by, two Justices of the Peace, Messrs. G. Stratton and W. Murphy, who announced, after hearing Mr. Stevens, that they had decided to proceed with the case.

When the case was called SeniorS.ergeant Claasen said he had received departmental instructions to apply for a formal remand until a date that would enable the case to be determined before a Magistrate. "HIGHLY IMPROPER." , "There are other cases- of the same type," Mr. Stevens said, "and I_object very strongly to the application made by the police. The man concerned in the first case lives at Stirling. He spent Saturday night in the cells, and he is entitled to have his case dealt with at the first available sitting of the Court. In another case that will come before the" Court the accused man lives 250 miles away from Dunedin in Central Otago, and if he has to make another trip to Dunedin at a later date it will mean serious inconvenience to! him. ■ • ■

"I submit that you have jurisdiction to -deal with these matters," Mr. Stevens added, addressing the justices. "You are entitled to deal with them, and it is highly improper for the Department to make any • application to have them held over. If you are not to be entitled to adjudicate in such cases, then that right should be taken away, as it was conferred, by Statute. The suggestion underlying the application made by the police is that you are incompetent to deal with cases of this kind, but until the Crown is prepared to take away the right that has been conferred on justices of the peace I submit that they are. bound to deal with matters of this kind."

APPLICATION FOR DEPARTMENT.

Senior-Sergeant Claasen: It is not my duty to argue the matter. I dissociate- myself entirely from any suggestion of incompetence. lam making- the application entirely on behalf of the Department. Mr.' Stevens: I do not suggest that the Senior-Sergeant is acting without instructions. Mr. Stratton intimated that the Bench intended to .deal with the cases.