STRONG PROTEST

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 134, 8 June 1945, Page 6

STRONG PROTEST

N.Z.R.S.A. STATEMENT "After four long years of persistent inquiry, the Government's policy in connection with military defaulters has at last been published," said' Mi\ B. J. Jacobs, Dominion president of the N.Z.R.S.A., in commenting on the regulations. "Briefly it is this: (a) To set up one-man revision authorities to rehear all cases of defaulters at present in detention camps; (b) not to deprive defaulters of civil rights; (c) in respect of the re-employment of defaulters in the Public Service, this matter is still under consideration. "A brief perusal of the regulations reveals that the revision authorities comprise really one-man tribunals," said Mr. Jacobs. "The defaulter may be represented by counsel. Neither the Press nor any other person can be present, and the Press can only publish any report that may be authorised by the revision authority There is no provision for any person to appear on behalf of t^e Crown to elicit cvi dence and cross-examine the defaulter. "In other words, the defaulter can tell his own tale and know that there will be no objection. Other itiutiers of procedure are left to the discretion of the revision authority. A further right is given to the defaulter, as his conduct during detention may be taken into account. "One of the revision authorities is a Stipendiary Magistrate, and it surely seems strange that as practically all defaulters' objections were really heard before Magistrates as chairmen of armed forces appeal boards in the first instance sitting with two other members, they are now to be reheard, in one instance at1 any rate, by a Magistrate sitting alone. The question naturally arises that the Government evidently has no confidence in those other Magistrates to adjudicate on the question of conscience. "WHY THE SOLICITUDE?" "When it is realised that a reservist's conscientious objection can be on religious grounds, or other grounds such as politics, and that an atheist can be a conscientious objector and further, that no appeal for conscientious objection was heard till all other appeals in connection with the reservist were disposed of, then one naturally asks why the Government's solicitude for the defaulter? "What a contrast in the hearing of a defaulter's case in the Magistrates room or other office in private, and with no cross-examination or .publicity, to the hearing of a reservist in the Army when he is tried, by a courtmartial. What a contrast m the Government's treatment of these defaulters and the recalcitrant men of | the first furlough draft, many of whom