A DANGEROUS PRINCIPLE
A dangerous principle is involved in proposed amendments to the Workers Compensation Act contained in the Statutes Amendment Bill, which was introduced into the House of Representatives last evening. The existing law provides that certificates given by medical referees on the facts affecting a claim for compensation for injury are to be accepted as conclusive. It is now proposed not only to annul this provision but to make it retrospective,. so that certificates which have already been given may be challenged. But the proposed amendment does not even stop at that point. The clause which the Government asks Parliament to write into the law makes provision' that! even if judgment has been entered in a case there will still be the right to commence further proceedings. This means that a claimant for compensation will have the right to him to challenge the "decision of a Court not by way of appeal but by commencing his action de novo. All retrospective legislation has an element of danger but such an application as this which will override Court decisions is particularly open to objection, Members of the House of Representatives should examine the proposal with the utmost care before consenting to write so far-reaching a principle into the law.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP19380908.2.33
Bibliographic details
Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 60, 8 September 1938, Page 8
Word Count
210
A DANGEROUS PRINCIPLE
Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 60, 8 September 1938, Page 8
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