JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIII, Issue 10655, 16 May 1895, Page 5

JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE.

JUDGE MOLESWORTH IN REPLY. [Special to Press Association.) MELBOURNE, Mat 15. Judge Molesworth, in replying to the Premier in reference to the remarks he made from the bench in connection with J. B. Davies’s insolvency, says he spoke in the public interest. It was not for the public interest that an insolvency judge should be subject to a dependent position, and that there should . be reasonable ground for the public to fear that in doing what he believed to bo bis duty ho might be acting against his own interests by offending influential members of Parliament. In the cities there were a number of cases whore such members with wide-reaching social influence [became insolvent for amounts ranging over a million, and the judges had to decide all cases without the intervention of. a jury ; thus urging a strong plea in favour o£ making the Insolvency Court independent of political influence. His Honor further says that a statement on the subject of judicial independence was signed by all the County Court judges, and presented to the Government last August, but up to the present it had not been answered. He also alleges that in applying for sick leave he was treated as a malingerer, and that in December last steps were taken by the Solicitor-General to remove him from Melbourne, but were afterwards abandoned. In conclusion, ho says it certainly appears to him that there are good grounds for believing that the public, whoaro the sufferers wberemembera of Parliament are concerned, might not believe that a judge in such, a position is able to dispense impartial^