Legal Men Favour Retention of Appeal to Privy Council

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 7200, 24 April 1930, Page 7

Legal Men Favour Retention of Appeal to Privy Council

TO PRIVY COUNCIL. JPer Press Association. AUCKLAND, Last Night. “As a profession, we must suffer if we aro severed from our fellowship with English workers in law, ’ ’ said Mr. J. B. Callan, of Dunedin, in tho course of an address on “Tho Appeal to tho Privy Council’’ at the annual conference of tho New Zealand Law Society this morning. “Such severance would, in turn, bo the ultimate result of severance from any Court of Appeal manned by English Judges, a specific instance of which is tho judicial committee of the Privy Council.’’ The following resolution was carried. “That this conference, representative of the whole of tho legal profession, resolves that the retention of the final right of appeal to His Majesty-in-Coun-eii is in tho best interests of tho Dominion of New Zealand and of tho Administration of Justice therein.’’

“Finest Tribunal in the World” COMPLETE FREEDOM FROM LOCAL BIAS. Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, April 23. “There is at the present time in certain parts of the British Dominions a desire, amounting almost to a- determination, to get rid of the Privy Council as the ultimate appellant tribunal,” said Sir Michael Myers, Chief Justice of New Zealand, in his inaugural address at the Law Conference yesterday. Sir Michael said he did not consider this was a live question In New Zealand. There was no desiro in New Zealand, he thought, to bring about such a drastic change, and he hoped the system would forever remain as it was. The Privy Council, he continued, was the finest tribunal in the world. Its judgments were the work of the finest minds of the Empire, and thero was complete freedom from that unconspicuous local bias which, try how he would, man in a small country found it difficult to avoid.

A suggestion had been made at Home several years ago that tho Privy Council should become an itinerant body, going around tho British Dominions. That, considered feir Michael, would be a retrograde step, and he was also able in 192(5 to convince one of the British Judges of tho unwisdom of such a step. Personally, he could think of no greater conception than that of appeal—because that was really what it was—to the fountain head of justice, to the King Mmself. It was tho ono last remaining tangible link between Great Britain and Dominions oversea, and lie hoped it would so remain.

Sir Michael suggested that a resolution passed by the conference would tend to strengthen the hands of delegates to the next Prime Ministers Conference.