PACIFIST’S APPEAL

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 April 1940, Page 4

PACIFIST’S APPEAL

DISMISSED BY CHIEF JUSTICE. [PEB PRESS ASSOCIATION.]

WELLINGTON, April 15-

Following the same legal precedent as Mr Justice Johnston had followed in a similar case, last week, the Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers) to-day dismissed the appeal ■of Ormond Edward Burton, minister of religion, aged 47, from his conviction by Mr J. L. Stout, S.M., on a charge of obstructing a police officer in the course 0? his duty. The appellant was arrested after he had rejected the advice of the police that he should not speak at one of the meetings held by the Christian Pacifist Society at the corner of Manners Street and Dixon Street on Friday nights. He was sentenced to three months’! imprisonment by the Magistrate. When the evidence finished late this afternoon, the appellant, who conducted his own case, said that if his conviction v/as upfield he had no complaint with the sentence. The question was whether it was the officer’s duty, at. that time, to order a speaker at a meeting which, it had been admitted, was otherwise a. lawful assembly, to desist. If the officer had sufficient weight of evidence to justify his decision that there would be a breach of the peace if the meeting were not stopped, it was his duty to stop it; but refusal to obey a policeman was not always an offence. Interjections, jeering, and rough humbnr did not justify that step by the police. The meetings had continued without a break for seven months, every Friday night, ami no person had ever been arrested fop a breach of the peace at them. About Christmas there commenced to be interference from soldiers, and they received encouragement from the fact that the police frequently stopped speakers, or removed or arrested them, hut gave the soldiers any latitude.

The appellant said he could understand police impatience with meeting's which caused inconvenience, and which they felt were unlawful because the speakers were opposed to the general'trend. Though they were not breaches of the. law any hostility gave them ground for action. Actually there had been 110 breach of the peace at any of the meetings. It might be said that the soldiers present were being provoked; but the law' did not suffer people to right their wrongs by disturbing the peace. Stopping a meeting should be the last resort, of the police when they could not sort out the disturbers, and after they ha[l appealed to the disturbers or removed them. When the police were warned that there would be trouble 1 from the men of the forces if a meeting were held, they could have asked the military and the authorities to enforce the King’s regulations, which prohibited the attendance of soldiers at such meetings'. If the Magistrate’s decision were upheld the meetings would be at the .mercy of any small gang of violently hostile persons. The Government. had ample safeguards against sedition in the war emergency regulations, and so there should be no encroachment on civil liberties and constitutional law. JUDGE’S RULING.

His Honor said the charge was not ono of being a pacifist, and the case did not involve the law of unlawful assembly or free speech. The point had been considered in a. recent English case, Duncan v. Jones, in which it had been clearly -expressed that the law was that it was the duty of the police to prevent an apprehended breach of the peace. Mr Justice Johnston had acted, no doubt, on that authority, and his Honor agreed with it. He would find that the police had reasonable apprehension, when ' the appellant v/as arrested, for they had the whole history of the meetings before them. The police had duties in war time even more onerous than in peace, and so long as they carried them out with moderation, within the law, it was the duty of citizens to support them. If they were immoderate the Court would not hesitate to condemn them, and see that no person suffered,

A covenant to be entered into by persons joining the society included the renunciation of war, and a declaration that they would not fight or serve under military control. The advocacy of those doctrines by a speaker in a public place was almost bound to lead to a disturbance and a breach of the peace. He could quite understand the apprehension of the police. The appellant was entitled to his opinions; but was misguided in holding a meeting in a public reserve when he was instructed by the police, and it should be obvious to him what the, result would be.