TITLE “HONOURABLE”

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 September 1940, Page 4

TITLE “HONOURABLE”

RESTRICTION IN USE. The correct use of the judicial title of “Honourable” is the subject of an article in the latest number of the New Zealand Law Journal. Stating that the Sovereign enjoys the sole right of conferring all titles of honour, the writer says that the title “Honourable” was conferred on the Judges of the Supreme Court of New Zealand by the King in a despatch dated December 22, 1911. “The title ‘Honourable’ enjoyed by the Judges of the Supreme Court,” continues the writer, “is not a right, an emolument or a privilege, since it is an honour and may be conferred only by His Majesty the King on such of his subjects as he pleases; and His Majesty has been pleased to specify Judges of the Supreme Court as the recipients of the honour under discussion. A Judge of the Court of Arbitration, unless he is a Judge of the Supreme Court, is not entitled to the title “Honourable/ ’either during his tenure of office or after his resignation. And,.for the same reason, the Judge of the Compensation Court, unless he be a Judge of the Supreme Court, is similarly disentitled to that honour. So, too, the title of ‘Mr Justice’ is peculiar to members of the Supreme Court Bench.” ; The article points out that even the Legislature had fallen into error when, in a clause of the Finance Act, 1940, it described the Judge of the Court of Arbitration as “Honourable.” No reference to the common use of the phrase “His Honor” ismade in the article.