ALTERATION OF WILL

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXV, Issue 305, 23 November 1945, Page 5

ALTERATION OF WILL

J. D. McGRUER ESTATE

(Press Assn.) WELLINGTON, Nov. 22 An amendment authorising application to the Supreme Court to vary the trusts of , the will has been made to the John Duncan McGruer Estate Bill by the committee of the House of Representatives to which the Bill was referred. The original Bill provided for the payment of an annuity of £SOO to Eoin Harvey McGruer, draper’s assistant, of Wanganui, from the estate of his father, the late John Duncan 1 McGruer, but the committee, which reported to the House of Representatives yesterday, has struck out this clause and substituted a new one empowering the application to be made 'within 12 months to the Supreme Court under the Family Protection Act for provision from the estate. The new amendment states that in considering any such application the Court shall not be bound, by the strict rules of evidence.

Mr R. McKeen , (Lab., Wellington South), speaking to the report, said the measure was without precedent in the history of the Dominion and would have historical consequences. The committee which had considered the Bill was not '' prepared to pass it in its original form. All the committee had to go on were the statements of the and the committee had not the right to make a decision based on those statements without their having' run the gauntlet before the Court or a properly-constituted authority. The Bill, as amended, would allow the petitioner to go to the Court unfettered by any legal difficulties now in his way owing to the lapse of time. The Bill, would enable him to make application to the Court under the family Protection Act despite the lapse of more than 20 years since probate was granted. Comment from both sides of the House made it clear that the Bill as amended has the approval of the legal members of the House. 13