PEOPLE’S LIBERTY

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20164, 6 February 1940, Page 11

PEOPLE’S LIBERTY

EXTRA SAFEGUARD GRAND JURY SYSTEM JUDGE URGES RETENTION CHECK TO IDEOLOGIES (Por Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. A statement that the preservation of the grand jury as an institution in defence of individual liberty, was made at the opening of the criminal session of the Supreme Court to-day by Mr. Justice Ostler, who referred to the German-Russian ideologies of worship of the State as being contrary to the British theory and which were responsible for the present war. Some of the jurors, said His Honour, might be saying to themselves: “We are pretty busy men. It is hard enough to make a living these days. Why should we be bothered with this task.” But the institution of the grand jury, he continued, was an extra constitutional safeguard of the people’s liberty. New ideologies were now being preached, and it seemed more than every necessary that the safeguard should be retained. The new doctrine of Herr Hitler and M. Stalin that the State was everything and that man existed only for its glorification was contrary to the British theory which was that the State existed only for the happiness of man. Those conflicting doctrines were a reason why the present war was being fought and everyone felt he would sooner be 100 times dead than lose liberties their fathers had won—libertes that would be lost if the war was lost.