JUDGE RELAXES

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 145, 22 June 1938, Page 6

JUDGE RELAXES

STORIES AT DINNER

TWO WAR-TIME TRIALS

A departure from the more formal ways of his office was made on Monday night by Mr. Justice Callan when responding to a toast in honour of his Majesty's Judges proposed at the annual dinner of the Auckland Law Students' Society, states the "New Zealand Herald." When proposing the toast Mr. G. P. Hanna paid attention to the reputation Great Britain enjoyed for the high standard of its justice, and in his reply his Honour said that only twice in his life had he been associated with proceedings which might have been open to question. Both of them were military courtsmartial during the Great War. One of the occasions when proceedings were not, he said, what might be called "the clean potato," was at Etaples when, in company with a Canadian division and a number of British divisions, the New Zealanders had their base at this town. The military police began to occupy much of their time in arresting" colonial troops on charges which were not always justified. A certain English lord was sent there to take responsibility for the punishment of the men who were considered to be erring from the proper paths. THE PRISONER'S FRIEND. The task of acting as prosecutor in these courts-martial fell by immemorial custom to the lot of the adjutant There came a time when the adjutant of the New Zealand troops with which the speaker was chiefly concerned was away on Pans leave. He came into the camp one day to find that he was not, as he had expected, to go up to the line for another fortnight. He was told that while the acting adjutant was to act as prosecutor he was to take the part of prisoner's friend. However, it was commonly felt that many of the Australians and New Zealanders were being brought before the courts-martial when they had committed no offence that justified their appearance. As a result of what might have been said between the prosecutor and the prisoner's friend on this occasion, the prosecutor followed a particularly forceful attacking opening by saying that in view of the evidence which had come before the Court, and from a study of the summary of evidence prepared for it, he was quite unable to press for a conviction and the prisoner was acquitted. A CORPORAL'S INDISCRETION. The other time when his conscience as a lawyer might not have been altogether clear, his Honour said, was at Sling Camp in England affer the Armistice. A corporal of his acquaintance committed the indiscretion of purchasing the leave pass of a sergeant, but neglected to put up three stripes on his arm instead of the two to which he was entitled when he endeavoured to pass the cordon in the town on the way to the railway station. His Honour introduced" the unlucky corporal to a friend o£ his who took the task of defending him. The two lawyers found a possibility for acquittal in the fact that the corporal had been arrested before he had gone far enough for anybody to say that he had actually attempted to get unlawful I leave by passing the picket rence into the station.

Shortly after, however, his Honoujr found that he had been appointed president of the court-martial. A protest to his lawyer friend that since hehad been in t>n the defence since the' beginning he could hardly act as president resulted in representations which for his peace of mind he could not very well deny and he sat as president.

After the hearing, the two members Of the Court who were not lawyers stated their conviction that the defence was "tommy rot."

"But it's good law, I said," concluded his Honour, "and prisoner was acquitted.