COUNTRY MAGISTRATES.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume III, Issue 173, 6 May 1864, Page 6 (Supplement)

COUNTRY MAGISTRATES.

(From the Otago Dally Times, March 7). After bis jubilant charge to the Grand Jury, his Honor Mr. Justice Richmond must have watched with bitter disappointment the progress of the session. He congratulated the country on the absence of crime which the calendar disclosed ; and whilst no reason was afforded him for withdrawing the congratulation, the fact must have come home to him that even with a less amount of crime than might be expected, the administration of justice was wofully mismanaged. The position of a Judge is a doubly onerous one. The mental labor attaching to the office is great, but the wearing, burdening, exacting part of a J udge’s duty is the vast moral responsibility which constantly presses upon him. Ever before him are two inexorable claims—the claim that society lias to be protected from the criminal, and the claim that the criminal lias to be protected from a sacrifice to society. To do justice to the two, a Judge must forget all personal feeling. In his Court he must live but for his office, dead to every other consideration. The bitterest pang he can suffer should be the conviction that there has been a miscarriage of justice, and equal should be the pain whether the injury is done to the criminal accused, or to the society outraged. Looked at from this aspect, the passionate indignation which Mr. Justice Richmond displayed when he found that through the fault of one of the officers of bis court, there was likely to be a failure of justice, did him infinite credit. It was not the personal slight be resented or regarded ; what galled him to the quick was lire thought that whilst he occupied the Hen eh he should be comdemned to sue the exercise of that justice it was his sacred duty to dispense disturbed. And then fast and thick gathered upon him fresh mortifications. In the name of justice he found that injustice had been perpetrated—that there were those brought be fore him whom there was no pretence for placing in a criminal dock.

The inefficiency in the country districts, with few exceptions, has become so glaring that unless the administration of justice is to become the object of derision the magisterial benches must he reinforced with men who understand their duties. We do not propose to mention names, because the persons implicated are not to blame; the fault—we had almost said the crime—lies with those who have been instrumental in placing them in positions for which their acquirements render them unfit. The vagaries of some of the Otago Magistrates defy conception. The ignorance of the occupant of the bench, who, wheuamau was brought before bun charged with arson, exclaimed, — “ Oh, fine him five pounds, and make him marry the girl,” sinks into insignificance before some of the doings of the up-country Solons. [Several instances of the local administration of justice then appears, and the article thus proceeds] :

It is useless to mention further instances, the above are a sample of Magisterial decisions; and to these eccentricities may bo added the practice commented upon by the Judge, of the committal of prisoners, for offences unknown to Statutory law. It is hardly necessary, even, to point the moral. The well-being of society depends upon the integrity and discretion of the Magisterial Bench. The one quality is useless without the other. However well meaning a magistrate may be, if he is incompetent ho is sure to bring the, administration ofjustice into contempt. Doubtless all those erratic Justices of the Peace are well-in-tentioned honest persons, but they want the knowledge necessary to the fulfilment of their exalted duties, and disastrous consequences will assuredly result from entrusting to them the extensive powers they possess. A man who does not possess the acquirements necessary for a magistrate may possibly make a good Warden. This a question we will not discuss. But no consideration of economy should induce the tampering with the administration of justice which assuredly results from the appointment of inefficient magistrates. The matter came this session before the Judge, and doubtless he will deem it his duty to express his opinion upon it to the Government. In Victoria, so strongly are the objections felt to making the appointments to the Magisterial Bench dependent upon political considerations, that the Assembly, wo believe, urged on the Governor not to place any one on the Commission of the Peace without (he concurrent recommendation of one at least of the Judges. There arc abundant signs of the necessity of exercising some such precautions, *ot only in Otago, but throughout Tsevr Zealand.