LEGAL REFORM.

Evening Star, Issue 7649, 27 June 1888, Page 1

LEGAL REFORM.

For years past there have been several proposals for improving the administration of justice in New Zealand. The present seems to be a favorable time for the Government to put things upon a thoroughly satisfactory footing. We hear constant complaints of the absence of the Judges on circuit, or at the Court of Appeal. This Court they must attend, and reasonable people will hardly complain ; but there is really no valid reason why the circuit work should not be otherwise arranged for. The District Court is very much a smaller Supreme Court already. It deals with the whole bankruptcy business of the Middle Island, except in the cities of Dunedin and Christchurch; it has the same powers as the Supreme Court in probate and administration, and has large jurisdiction under the Mining Companies Act; further, and more important still, it exercises a criminal jurisdiction, embracing most offences, the punishment for which does not exceed seven years’ penal servitude. In respect to gold mining, the District Court is the only and final Court of Appeal from decisions, whether judicial or ministerial, of the goldfield Wardens. The ordinary civil jurisdiction of this Court, however, -is limited to £200; is conferred by an Act founded on an old English statute long since repealed; and is encumbered by rules of procedure utterly unsuitable to modern jurisprudence. In this condition of affairs, what is best to be done in the general interests of the community? The opinion in some quarters is that the powers of the District Court should be enlarged, and the procedure amended Another view is that this Court should be abolished altogether, and its work transferred to the Resident Magistrate’s. There are, however, strong objections to either of these courses. To the first, in that what is an unsatisfactory sort of tribunal would be conserved, having more power than the Resident Magistrate’s and much less than the Supreme Court, with a practice and procedure peculiar to itself. Such a Court in time would interfere seriously with the Resident Magistrate’s Court, which is most useful if kept within proper limits. To the second proposal it should be sufficient answer that Resident Magistrates, as a rule being without legal training, are not competent to deal with grave questions as to rights of property and the various complicated issues which arise in bankruptcy, probate, and administration. The abolition of the District Court would further—and this is an important consideration—deprive the miners of their Court of Appeal. The cost of taking cases to the Supreme Court would be in most instances absolutely prohibitive, and thus amount to a denial of justice; whilst the Supreme Court Judges have certainly quite enough to do already without having such work of this kind, as there might be, thrown upon them. Under all the circumstances, a scheme has been suggested which appears to us to have in it the merit of convenience and economy, as well as of originality. It may be assumed that Mr Dudley Ward will be confirmed in his present temporary appointment to the Supreme Court Bench, and this will leave Judge Broad the only District Judge for the South Island. He has been, indeed, acting in this capacity for the last eighteen months or two years, and has, it is understood, got through the heavy work devolving upon him to the satisfaction of the public and the profession. The idea is that the District Court, so far at least as the South Island is concerned, should be abolished, and the Judge appointed an extra puisne Judge of the Supreme Court, who should not be a member of the Court of Appeal, and CDnsequently not be entitled to receive so large a salary as the Judges of that Court, and whose duties should be mainly to take the country circuits. The present Judges would, under such an arrangement, only require to be absent from the centres of their respective jurisdictions during the sittings of the Court of Appeal. The country districts would have the undoubted advantage of local and fairly frequent sittings of the Supreme Court, which would take up all the work now done by the District Court, with unlimited criminal jurisdiction—a matter of some moment as regards the cost of trials and the convenience of witnesses. A peripatetic Judge such as suggested would practically relieve the Supreme Court in the several districts of all business at such places as Nelson, Hokitika, Grey, mouth, and Invercargill, and would embrace in his circuit townships where the District Court is now held and other places which might be thought desirable.