PROTRACTED RAGLAN HEARING

Evening Star, Issue 26087, 29 April 1947, Page 9

PROTRACTED RAGLAN HEARING

RESPONDENT'S CASE OPENED DISPUTE ON TECHNICAL GROUNDS (P.A.) HAMILTON, April 28. “ The outstanding feature of the case presented during the past fortnight is that those who expected some revelation of full-blooded electoral misdemeanours have been disappointed. There have been no such revelations, as. there were no such allegations,” said Mr T. P. Cleary, opening the case for the respondent in the Electoral Court . this afternoon. Mr Cleary, who with Mr It. Hardie Boys, appears for the respondent, Mr A. C. Baxter, opened his address to the court late in'the afternoon at the conclusion of the case presented for the petitioner, Mr Hallyburton Johnstone, by Mr W. •1. Sim, K.C., Mr A. L. Tompkins, and Mr R. E. Tripe. The Chief Justice, Sir Humphrey O’Leary, and the senior puisne judge, Sir Archibald Blair, who occupied the Bench, ,are asked to declare Mr Johnstone elected as member for Raglan in place of Mr Baxter. OBJECTIONS IN KIND. Mr Cleary, addressing the court, said the petitioner had built up his case by objecting to a large number of votes on a variety of technical grounds, and the respondent must, in self-defence, make the same kinds of objections, joiniug issue with the petitioner on the battleground he had chosen. Recalling that Mr Sim, in outlining the petitioner’s case, had classified his objections as, first, to voters not qualified to be on the roll; secondly, to the allowance or rejection of certain ordinary ballot papers; and, thirdly, to certain postal and absentee votes, Mr Cleary said the petition was based entirely on irregularities which might be called innoeent or technical, if, indeed, one could dignify with the name of irregularities some of the grounds of objection pursued by the petitioner. “ A layman might be forgiven for calling this petition a lawyer’s petition,” said Mr Cleary. The respondent’s case must, for the most part, follow similar lines to the petitioner’s. As he had challenged Maoris, the respondent must challenge others. . Mr Cleary said the court for a fortnight now had been listening to objections by the petitioner against voters whom lie conceded had acted reasonably and honestly. Under this process no person had been immune. The soldier who had acted in good faith overseas, the returned man who had left his home in Raglan and who on his return to New Zealand had stayed with his wife’s people outside the electorate while waiting for a rehabilitation building loan, the rehabilitation trainee whose only home was in Raglan, but who had worked temporarily outside the electorate to gain experience essential to qualify him for a farming loan—these had all had their votes challenged. Among civilians it was the same—girls who had turned 21 just before the election, a man of 88 who recognised no other home than one in Raglan who had to seek a more congenial climate in winter, . people who were in housing difficulties and had to seek temporary shelter elsewhere than in IRaglan—these were the people challenged by the petitioner, who asked the court, to say he was the district’s true representative in Parliament. RESIDENTIAL QUALIFICATIONS.

Mr Cleary, discussing in more detail the Objections' raised on residential grounds, said the respondent contended, first, that every elector must be entitled to claim residential qualification in,some electorate, since every adult had the right to vote.' An elector could ordinarily have only one residential qualification. Thirdly, the authorities showed that where an elector had a bona fide home in one electorate and a place of abode in another, lie had the option of claiming residential qualification for either electorate. .Fourthly, where an elector, posseted of residential qualification in one electorate, resided temporarily for more than three months in another electorate, he had the optiop of either retaining his qualification for the old electorate or claiming one for the new electorate.

Mr Cleary said an elector should have the right to base a claim upon temporary residence if he chose, but that temporary residence should not bo used to impose a new qualification upon him against his wishes and at the cost of forfeiting the qualification he had previously held. Mr Cleary was. still addressing the court when the adjournment was taken. Previously, Mr Sim, after the concluding evidence on behalf of the petitioner had been heard, said that concern had been caused by a remark of the Chief Justice during the morning that the Bench was considering the cases day by day. Mr Sim said it had been understood that submissions were to be heard on the various categories of objections, and these submissions would be necessary in some instances before the court could reach a decision. Sir Humphrey gave hn assurance that no decisions were being made in cases where counsel’s submissions might have a bearing on the matter, but there were some cases which depended simply an matters of fact. “It is in such ■ cases as these that we are writing our opinion at the side of our notes as we go along,” said the Chief Justice. At the conclusion of the petitioner’s case 179 foolscape pages of evidence, or nearly 72,000 words, had been typed.