Bureaucracy Dazed Under War Conditions

Northern Advocate, 29 June 1943, Page 5

Bureaucracy Dazed Under War Conditions

(P.A.) AUCKLAND. Monday. The dangers of bureaucracy under war conditions was discussed by the magistrate (Mr. Luxford) in addressing Auckland Rotarians today. He said that the Civil Service in New Zealand had a long wav to go before anyone would be justified in saying that it had become an evil thing. Indeed, it was a service of which any country might well be proud and all responsible members of the community were anxious that its great reputation should remain untarnished: Hence the concern lest anything should creep into the Public Service which might tend to make it a law unto itself. The first great bulwark was the right of every citizen whose liberty was involved to appeal to courts of justice presided over by an independent and publicly respected judiciary. The second great bulwark should be the establishment of a principle that no administrative officer should do an act in the name of the lav/ which, if done by an individual, would be publicly condemned. . Mr. Luxford asked whether the dignity or sovereign power of Parliament would be lessened if some specially constituted tribunal were given power to suspend on a clause of an Orderrin-Council if its enforcement might lead to evil or unjust consequences which the Legislature could not have had in mind. He did not think so. The adoption of such a principle would go a long way towards ensuring a feeling that the State existed for all citizens. The true repository of sovereign power in a democracy is not Parliament but the people themselves and that must be remembered even in time of war, when some partial surrender of power to the executive was necessary.