"THE NEW ZEALAND JURIST." NEW SERIES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XII, Issue 4375, 20 November 1875, Page 5

"THE NEW ZEALAND JURIST." NEW SERIES.

THE first number—that issued for the present month —reached us yesterday, and in view of the difficulties which we can readily understand have attended the floating of the first issue of a new periodical, the number deserves creditable notice. The editorial preface to subscribers appearing on the first is full of promise, and if the promises are faithfully and with ability and care carried out, the publication cannot fail to be a boon to all persons connected with the Courts of the colony. The editorial notice we refer to runs thus: —" The present issue of the ' New Zealand Jurist' , will commence the first volume of the new series and the third volume of the old. The publication will in future be monthly. The reports will include all the cases of importance decided by the Supreme Court in its different districts, and by the Court of Appeal. The columns of the first sheet of each number will be devot-ad to the discussion of legal topics and matters of interest to the profession, and will be open to contributors, either in the shape of correspondence or communicated articles. It will also contain notes of new decisions in anticipation of full reports, where it is not practicable to publish the reports in the first instance. With a view to rendering the publication useful to the magistracy as well as to the profession, cases arising in the inferior Courts, and involving novel points of law or practice, will also be noted in this part of the 'Jurist,' and, at the same time, attention will be given to an important but hitherto neglected branch of New Zealand law—the law relating to mining. With the current reports of cases, subscribers will receive a reprint of the practical statutes passed during each session of the Assembly, including all the statutes of general application, and omitting only the local, private, and personal, and the money Acts. This edition of the statutes will, on its completion, contain tables of the statutes amended, repealed, or otherwise affected; and as it will appear in a more convenient form than the authorised edition, it will be found useful to the practitioner and the magistrate. . In order to preserve uniformity in the second volume of the 'Jurist,' a fourth number, in continuation of the third number of the old series, will be published before the end of the year, with index, tables of cases reported, and cases cited, &c. Number four will be issued to subscribers without additional charge." It is true the present number lacks, to a great extent, one of the elements which we most look for in the new publication— namely, reports of "all cases of importance decided by the Supreme Court in its dif-fei-ent districts," and contains reports only of cases decided in the Otago and Southland districts, and notes only of a few cases decided in the Wellington and Canterbury districts. But this, we take it, will be remedied in the future. And thus a useful array of precedents especially applicable to the administration of New Zealand law will in course of time be presented, which cannot but aid all concerned in the dispensing of justice in the colony, and which should be especially valuable in securing consistency in decisions throughout the New Zealand Courts. The editorial article on "Parliamentary Drafting," wherein doubts are expressed as to the expediency, or rather necessity, of the Government of New Zealand sending to England for a Parliamentary draftsman, strikes us as pertinent and good, and the illustration of the Conveyancing Ordinance seems apt. Indeed, it may not be out of place to state that the late Chief Justice, Sir G. Arney, shortly before leaving here for England, in conversation with the writer of this article, expressed his opinion of the great ability of a learned gentleman in this city in the art of drafting bills, and expressly pointed out that the Acts the gentleman in question had drafted are models of perspicuity and terseness. In one of the cases reported in the present number (The Solicitor-General v. Corporation of the City of Dunedin and others) a somewhat interesting preliminary objection was raised in view of the Attomey-Gener&l's Act, 1866, as to the status of the Solicitor-General. But the judge (Mr. Justice Williams), in a somewhat lengthy judgment on the point, decided, after reviewing at length the constitutional law bearing on the subject, that the Governor of New Zealand has by his commission power to appoint a SolicitorGeneral, although there is no statutory authority for his appointment, and although the appointment of Attorney-General is regulated by 'statute, and that the Court will take judicial notice of the present holder of the office of Solicitor-General and of the vacancy in the office of Attorney-General. Indeed the whole case from which we have just quoted raises a number of most important and interesting questions, and should be attentively perused by at least all those interested in municipal law. It has been known as the cause cetebrc of Dunedin for some time past.

For the profession there is a new and interesting point, raised and discussed iit Dunedin before the present Chief Justice (in. Malaghan v. Wenkheim), as to the right of plaintiff to have his costs taxed where, under certain circumstances, in an action for slander, damages only to the extent of one farthing had been given by a jury. And there are also some decisions of the late District Judge Mr. "Wilson Gray in mining law which will well repay perusal.

Altogether, as we have said before, the publication is a creditable one, and warrants the support of the profession, and of all those who desire to see a wholesome consistency in the decisions of the Supreme and other Courts in the different districts of the colony. .'