EVERY MAN HIS OWN LAWYER. An Opinion from the Bench.

Free Lance, Volume V, Issue 247, 25 March 1905, Page 6

EVERY MAN HIS OWN LAWYER. An Opinion from the Bench.

DON T you know, ' said Dr McAithur, S M., the other day, in that semi mack-seri-ous way which makes it a pleasure to leceive three months at his hands, "that yon are supposed to know the whole law of England?' He was addressing a citizen who had broken by-law No 1001 by distributing "dodgers ' m the city, and who didn t seem to know the law on the subject. The defendant didn't faint, but he looked staggered Now, what an uncommonly steep contract it would be to know the whole law of England The layman who attempted it would have to> swat up several thousand British statutes *■ * * Even then his task would be only half over, for he would then have to tackle the job of making head and tail of our own very voluminous laws. He will be bald-headed, toothless, and an idiot before he begins to see glimmerings of reason in one-twentieth of our little lot. If the ordinary person knew a little about the law, there wouldn't be any need for lawyers. The lawyers understand them then? A lawyer does not say, "Such and such a law is so and so." He remarks that "he is of opinion that the intention of the Legislature was, ' etc , and he'll defend his opinion for you m court, and the court will support him, and one party will appeal, and the Appeal Court, that should know something about it, will disallow the appeal, and the case will go to the law Lords of the Privy Council, and they will be of opinion that the Legislature of a country 16,000 miles away meant something entirely different, and practically brand our judges as noodles. * ♦ * And the man who' distributes "dodgers" ought to know what no-

body knows and never will know until by extreme simplicity the statutes are made understandable to the "man m the street." ■ A man may master a particular law this week, and next week be run m for breaking a sub-section of it tacked on by some budding political genius who wants to get his name m the papers. It is uncommon in New Zealand to turn out a complete legislative article. The ordinary way is to brmp- in a bill — it doesn't matter about what — and get it rushed through Then through the succeeding years to hack and torture it into a wan semblance of reasonableness. * * * In connection with municipal bylaws, it isn't sufficient for the ordmaxy man that a new section be published in tho papers. They should be tacked to every lamp-post. Town criers might be revived, and the city councillors should always carry a supply of pamphlets on the subject — although if they distributed them they also wouM come under the eye of the policeman, who is ever willing to take on a "clane and aisy" job with no burglars in it