THESE ENDLESS ADJOURNMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11685, 21 June 1901, Page 4

THESE ENDLESS ADJOURNMENTS.

We drew attention some weeks ago to the totally unjustifiable adjournment of a highly important inquest. The grounds then offered were that the legal gentleman who was to appear for the police had professional business elsewhere; now the same inquest is for the third time unnecessarily and unjustifiably adjourned for a prolonged period on the grounds that a legal gentleman who has been watching the case has unprofessional business elsewhere. The convenience of the jurymen whose business is interfered with and whose reasonable expectations are thrust aside seems to count as nothing beside the lightest request of those whose business it is to attend courts and who are supposed to have nothing else to do. As for the possible effect upon the course of justice and for the unjust position in which such adjournments must place any suspected person, we say nothing. Only we should have j thought that, however loose and

careless may be the administration of the Department of the professional pride of the ofhcials and gentleman involved would have prevented them from being associated with a proceeding calculated to brine: the law into disrepute.