COSTS ARGUMENT IN RAGLAN INQUIRY ENDED IN COURT

Evening Star, Issue 26155, 17 July 1947, Page 10

COSTS ARGUMENT IN RAGLAN INQUIRY ENDED IN COURT

fP.A.) WELLINGTON, July 16. There probably bad not been such a thorough inquiry into an election result in New Zealand previously, said the Chief Justice, Sir Humphrey O’Leary, of the recent Raglan petition case, when the Electoral Court sat for the last time to-day to hear argument on costs. The Chief Justice said that much good would result from the case, and no doubt many points ufiort which electors had innocently been mistaken would be clarified for the future. Mr T. P. Cleary, making submissions on behalf of the respondent, Mr A. 0. Baxter, who successfully defended the petition, said the case was not one in which each party should be left to pay its own costs, nor was it one in which the successful party had made unsuccessful charges of electoral misdemeanour against the other party. There was, therefore, no reason why the court should ask the ■ respondent to pay any part of the petitioner’s costs. Mr Cleary said that of a total of 265 objections by both parties, the petitioner succeeded with 87 and failed with 73. The respondent succeeded with 61 and failed with 44. The respondent’s failures were thus only onesixth of the total objections, and Mr Cleary submitted that if the court wished to apportion costs it could do so on the basis that respondent failed with one-sixth of the total objections dealt with. Mr Cleary asked the court to fix costs on party and party basis, with allowances for the extra days of the hearing and for the extra counsel.’ He also asked for witnesses’ expenses only in respect of cases in which Mr Baxter’s objections succeeded. Mr W. J. Sim, K.C., for Mr Hallyburton Johnstone, asked that the costs be apportioned on the basis of 87 successful objections by the petitioner, as against 61 by the respondent. He also submitted that petitioner had acted in the public interest by calling for an investigation of the validity of voting, and that this factor should be considered in fixing costs: The Chief Justice said allowance would be made, but not to the point where the successful party might have to pay something to the petitioner,: who did not win his case. Mr Sim said it already had been indicated that the electoral law would be revised as a result of what had been revealed in the llaglan hearing. This was proof that the public interest had been served, and the petitioner was entitled to credit for that. The court indicated that its decision on costs, together with its final judgment, running into about 60 typewritten pages, would be delivered within about a week.'