THE MAGISTRACY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 230, 28 August 1937, Page 8

THE MAGISTRACY.

A point of considerable importance, and one of which the public know little if anything, has been raised in an address given by Mr J. H. Luxford, S.M. It is that Stipendiary Magistrates and Justices of the Peace are not immune from financial liability for any judicial action or omission. The ease of a Magistrate who issued a warrant of committal was quoted by Mr Luxford as “not singular.’’ On proceedings being taken in the Supreme Court the learned Judge decided that the Magistrate had committed an error, and a writ of habeas corpus was granted. The matter, however, did not end there, for the Magistrate had to settle a claim for damages. A refund of only one-half the amount paid was received by the Magistrate in question, even though the Crown law officers admitted that the law the Magistrate had interpreted was obscure. “We do not ask for different or bigger weapons than the Judges,” Mr Luxford said, “but we are at least entitled to cover.” That opinion has been supported by Mr Justice Ostler in an interview at Auckland. A most important function of the State, he points out, is the impartial administration of justice. “Human experience,” His Honour says, “has shown that the safest and best way 9f ensuring the pure administration of justice is the absolute independence of those engaged in its administration.” That independence, Air Justice Ostler emphasised, embraces so important a principle that so far as Judges are concerned it has been enshrined in every democratic Constitution based on the English model. The United States, the Australian States, and New Zealand have recognised it. English law has also for' a long time provided that Judges shall be_ absolutely immune from civil liability for anything they say or do in the execution of their duty, a rule, His Honour stresses, devised not for the protection of Judges but for the benefit of the public. “The surest way of providing for the purity and independence of the administration of justice is to provide that those engaged in its administration shall be put in a position of independence and freedom from fear of the consequences,” says His Honour, who can see no reason why Magistrates should not enjoy the same position as Judges do. With these opinions there can only be general support, for it is essentially not right that a Magistrate must weigh the .consequences of his action to himself in determining his decision.