ELECTION PETITIONS

Evening Star, Issue 15777, 14 April 1915, Page 4

ELECTION PETITIONS

[PF.n United Press Association.] WELLINGTON, April 14. The Full Court this morning proceeded to lake the Tauniarmuii case, in which the opinion of Iho (‘ourt is desired as to whether the petition filed was duly presented within the time limited by subsection A of section 90 of the- Leg isiati: re Act, 19C8. The affidavit set out that the writ for the said electoral district was made returnable within 28 days from the 21st day of November, 1914, that the election was held on the 10th day of December, find that date of endorsement on the writ that Mr Jennings was elected was the 17th December. The official recount was completed by the returning officer on the 38th, December, the result of which was published in the ‘ King Country Chronicle ’ on the following day. The, said petition was presented on the 15th January, 1915. ■.Mr TL AI. Findlay, for Mr Jennings, said success in his case in opposition to the petition depended upon his ability to satisfy the Court that the existing law was the same as that which governed the Wairarapa ease, which was decided in 1897. If the date on which the petition must he lodged ran from, the date of the endorsement on the writ, then the petition was not in time, but, if the time ran from .any later date, then ho admitted it was in time.

Air Justice Cooper said the whole point of the case was whether the date, ra.n from the endorsement on the writ or from the public declaration of the result of the poll. .Mr Findlay agreed that that was so, and proceeded to argue that the Wairarapa case was the authority which determined that the time runs from the endorsement of writ. If the Court was prepared to impeach that case and hold that the decision was not good in Jaw, then he had nothing further to say.

Sir John Findlay, for the petitioners in the .Bay of Islands case, submitted that, tin, Wairarapa case was wrongly decided, and that the time of n petition was not governed by the endorsement of the writ, but by the public, declaration of tho result of the- poll.

Mr justice Edwards said he did not think the, Wairarapa case need trouble them at all. There the Court decided that the endorsement of the writ was the declaration of (ho poll, but the present law prescribed t-ho special form in which the declaration must bo made, so that the positions were not parallel. The Thief Justice remarked that counsel had belter not yet, assume that that was the opinion of the Court. Sir John Findlay, continuing, contended that everything pointed to a. public declaration being necessary. The public had no right to obtain 'from the Electoral Department the date of the endorsement on the- writ, and could not know when the petition must he lodged, hut could now when a public declaration was made, and therefore the, public were put on guard. Assuming (hat, the Wairarapa case was rightly decided, the legislation had been altered since, and now a public declaration of the result of a- poll was necessary, and nothing could reasonably be done, in the way of loci,ring: a petition until the result of the prdU was made Jfuown. Tin’s was forcibly cxcir.filp.cd in the Hawke's Bay case, where Mr Campbell’s petition was largely based on matters disclosed by the recount, which could not be. known when the writ was endorsed. Whore recounts take place it was quite conceivable that owing to delay n, candidate might lose his right to a peti-t-icn if Ike time ran from the endorsement of the writ, and that was never contc.ru phi led by the Legislature. .Such a position was new, and could not have arisen when the Wairarapa case was tried.