SUPREME COURT BENCH

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIII, Issue 282, 14 November 1923, Page 7

SUPREME COURT BENCH

METHOD OF APPOINTMENT. ATTORNEY-GENERAL AND LAW SOCIETY. Wellington, Nov. 13. Recently the Wellington Law Society forwarded the following resolution to Sir Francis Bell. Attorney-General, on the subject of the appointment of the Chief Justice and Judges of the Supreme Court:—“That it is the emphatic opinion of the council that all appointments to the Supreme Court bench, including the Chief Justice, should, in the public interest, he filled from the actively practising bar.’ ’ Sir Francis Bell hag now forwarded a lengthy answer, in the course of which he says he regrets he cannot concur that any such definite rule should be accepted as obligatory upon himself as Attorney-General oi\ upon the Government, which has the responsibility of the appointments of the New Zealand Bench. He doubted if the Bar itself would desire such a rule without any exception, and points out that such a rule would have precluded the appointment of the late Mr. Justice Williams, who was not a practising barrister at the time he was elevated to the Bench. With regard to the Chief Justiceship, while expressing the hope that it will be long before that high office is vacant, when it does become vacant it will he the duty of the Government to offer the appointment to the man best fitted to preside over the Bench and to hold the dormant commission of the GovernorGeneralship, whether that man be a practising barrister or already a member of the Bench. The proposition that a Judge once appointed should have no prospect of promotion is one which has ceased to be recognised in England and has not been adopted in New Zealand. He therefore declines to accept a hard and fast rule for the guidance df the Government. The only rule which he can accept is that the man, having statutory qualifications who, in the opinion of the Government of the day is best fitted for a place on the bench or to preside over the Bench should be appointed whenever a vacancy occurs, and that it is the duty of the Government to ignore all other considerations.