The Northern Advocate Daily “NORTHLAND FIRST” TUESDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1938. The New Supreme Court

Northern Advocate, 4 October 1938, Page 6

The Northern Advocate Daily “NORTHLAND FIRST”

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1938. The New Supreme Court

Registered for transmission through the post as a Newspaper

The laying of the foundation-stone of Whangarei’s new Supreme Court building by the Minister of Justice yesterday was an event of great interest and important in more than one sense. In the first plaee, the new building will be a distinct asset to the architecture of Whangarei, and with the Public Library, the County Council Offices, and the enlarged and remodelled Post Office (when completed), it will confer on Whangarei a standard of public buildings, possessed by few towns of similar size in New Zealand, • , •, ? An even more important aspect is that when l the new court is completed, sittings of the Supreme Court will be held in Northland for the first time in its history, and litigants, prisoners, witnesses, and others concerned will be spared the trouble and loss of time involved in hearing cases 100, 200, or even more miles, from their place of origin. Every barrister and solicitor in Northland knows the loss of time, the expense, and the irritation inseparable from taking cases to the Supreme Court at Auckland to be heard. In many instances, there has been more than one trial of a case, and all the witnesses and others concerned have had to journey to Auckland over and over again, there to experience wearying delays and adjournments before their ease can be finally dealt with. Many of the criminal cases which originate in Northland, concern members of the Maori race. It will be in the interests of justice to have the juries which try such cases, arising often from the conditions of life in isolated Maori communities, selected from men who are aware of those conditions. This is only one of many directions in which the sitting of the Supreme Court at Whangarei will be a step forward. Nowadays the Supreme Court is not invested with quite the same ceremonial as in other years. At one time Judges could claim, as a matter of right, an escort of halberdiers on arriving at a town in the course of their circuits, and the late Mr. Justice Alpers in his lively book, “Cheerful Yesterdays,” recalled how one of the early Judges at Napier waxed insistent when halberdiers failed tp meet him. Today the Supreme Court Judge arriving at a provincial town attracts no more attention than an ordinary citizen. The court itself, however, retains the dignity which has given to British justice through the years, such a weight of scrupulous fairness and impartiality that will help to impress the rising generations of Northland wi(li a sense of our civic traditions when they are able to see such processes at work. The first sitting of the Supreme Court at Auckland was begun on February 28, 1842, and ever since then all eases originating in Northland have had to go to Auckland for trial. Indeed, the first man hanged at Auckland was a Maori named Maketu, who had murdered a woman at Robinson’s Island, Bay of Islands. But that is an unhappy 1 and far-off story. We hope that when Whangarei’s new Supreme Court building is opened, visiting Judges will more often than not receive gifts of white gloves, in recognition of the absence of criminal cases from the calendar.