THE EMPIRE'S HIGHEST COURT.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXV, Issue LXV, 20 June 1913, Page 7

THE EMPIRE'S HIGHEST COURT.

A colonial might be excused for associating the most august pidicia] tribunal iv the Empire with an imposimr Court-room, stately decorum, andmuch ceremonial. But, according to the London correspondent of the Sydney Sun. it meets in the simplest circumstances' .lhe colonial who wants to see how the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (to give it its full name) does its u£- S°- es dmvn to Whitehall, sees Lnvv Council" in gold letters; op a aoor. and is directed to a room that surprises him by its plainness. "It is just a large'room, perhaps 50 feet by 40 situated at the back of the building, where no noise of the street m-i penetrate, aud removed from the careless footsteos of officials by a heaw red felt curtain. Lovely stained oak -pve 1Img runs three-quarters of the wav up to its lofty ceiling, and most of tbe panelling j.s hidden by irreat Lookcases, which also climb to the ceiling along the four walls, and are packed with legal treatises and authorities upon every conceivable subject pertinent to law-making and le-'al judgments. Tho members of the Judicial Committee sit at the plainest of plain tables three-quarters of the wav down the room. In front of them, not ten ceet away, is a tiny rostrum from which counsel who is in possession of the Court addresses them. On each side of him :ire other counsel for the plaintiff or for the defendant, and immediately behind them are quaint old desks for the solicitors who arc instructing them. Behind them, again, are two small benches for the accommodation of the general public, and I should say that, small as they are, their capacity is never overtaxed.*' The appearance- of member.? of the Court rudely shatters preconceived ideas, for they sit without wigs or gowns. Their table is neatly .stacked with copies of the evidence and arguments in the colonial ease iv question; it is the in- i structing solicitors who are almost lost behind barricades of legal books. Quiet is the characteristic of ihe proceedings. Messengers in evening dress, with feltsoled slippers, move about to do tho bidding of 'My lords'' and their staff. '-You might be standing at a sick bedside, so hushed and restrained are the tones in which the argumentative conversation and the cut and thrust between Bench and Bar v are conducted. You have to listen '* with the utmost intentness if ydp . arp to catch the full-purport of the\ observations mad* by the Lord Judges arid the response of counsel. Thewtalk so quiejbly^'that they invest their\ converwith an air of unreality. A^M^o^ihi\e you pinch yourself to maK^||ir^ that you are not dreaming." It'.-'iSr^uridus that the highest Court should be less like a Court than the lower one.., but its efficiency is not impaired by the absence of pomp and circumstance.