ONEKAKA CASE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 67, 20 March 1943, Page 6

ONEKAKA CASE

LEAVE TO APPEAL GRANTED

Leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal against his judgment in favour of the companies •< concerned in the Crowns-suit for the forfeiture of mining privileges at Onekaka was granted by the Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers) in; the Supreme Court day afternoon, on the :■ application of the: Solicitor* General (Mr.1 H. H. Cornish, K.C.). Conditions of the granting of leave are that the Crown has to bring on its appeal at the June sittings of the Court of Appeal; it has to pay the posts of printing in any case; if it. is successful, it cannot claim any costs from the respondents; it has to agree not to go to the Privy: Council on a further appeal, although that course is open to the respondents if they so elect; and it has to be ready to go on with the compensation claims after the expiration.of one. month from the decision of the Court of Appeal. Two objections made; to the granting of leave by counsel for the respond-ent-companies were that the application was out of time, having been made too late, and that even if >it was in time, the application should not be granted, because the Crown should rest content, having had two hearings, before the Warden and the Chief Justice.

The Crown's motion for leave to appeal' was made "on the ground, that the questions involved in the appeal ought, by reason of their general importance and the magnitude of the interests affected, to be submitted to the Court of Appeal," and on the further ground stated in* an affidavit by Reginald Jackson, investigating officer of the Iron and Steel Department, that the respondents had filed compensation claims to a total of £418.000. "The affidavit added that a decision on i the issue of forfeiture would determine whether or not the claims were to be adjudicated upon by a Compensation Court. / ■ " ' QUESTION OF FORFEITURE. In his judgment last December the Chief Justice upheld the decision of the Warden that the privileges were liable to forfeiture on March 14, 1938, the day immediately before the commencement of the Iron and Steel Act, but would not. in fact, have been forfeited if appropriate proceedings for their forfeiture had been taken. His Honour said his decision did not necessarily mean that the respondents were entitled to compensation in respect of any of the privileges, but it did mean that they were entitled to have their claims heard by. a Compensation Court. It was for that Court to say. assuming that compensation turned out to be payable, which parties were entitled to claim and receive it.

Mr. C. A. L. Treadweli appeared with Mr. Cornish in yesterday's proceedings. Mr. P. B. Cooke, K.C., with him Mr. C. G. White, appeared for the Onekaka Iron and Steel Company, Ltd. (in liquidation). Mr. C. H. Weston, K.C., with him Miss Julia Dunn, for the Golden Bay Proprietary Company, Ltd., and Mr. W. J. Sim, K.C., with him Mr. E. W. Guise, for Pacific Steel, Ltd.