KING'S COUNSEL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15483, 15 December 1913, Page 9

KING'S COUNSEL.

MR. HINDMARSH'S ATTACK.

"TINKERING RESTRICTIONS."

>IY TELEGRAPH.—SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT ]

Wellington - , Sunday. As attack upon the establishment of King's counsel in the legal profession of the country was made by Mr. A. H. Hindmarsh (Wellington South), in the House of Representatives on Friday, when the Law Practitioners' Amendment Bill was under discussion.

"A good deal of dissatisfaction," ho said, "exists amongst lawyers as to the wav the King's counsel follow the office that they have accepted. A very large meeting of the legal profession in Wellington some time ago expressed this dissatisfaction by an overwhelming majority." He had intended to bring down a Bill abolishing the office of King's counsel, and this Bill was discussed by the meeting and supported by the large majority. He had not Rone on with the Bill, although ho very much wanted to raise the question. In England, King's counsel occupied a very different position to what obtained in New Zealand. There the counsel was imported into an action at the last moment, the work being done by the ordinary counsel. The imported counsel was designed to give real assistance before the Courts/ but in New Zealand, the person imported into the case was a junior, who was only brought in by the King's counsel for the sake of conforming with,the custom. This practice increased the. cost to.tho public. The real work, the whole work, was done by the King's counsel.

" We don't want any of these tinkering restrictions in New Zealand," declared Mr. Hindmarsh. He could hardly understand how this system was brought in here and the King's counsel created. The country was for many years without them and there was no demand for them. The legal profession was not consulted, and it was an innovation that was not required, and was objected to by the majority of the working lawyers of the colony. Their appointment in a small Democratic country like this was unnecessary. Mr. W. H. D, Bell ("Wellington Suburbs) said he thought a mistake had been made in introducing King's counsel into New Zealand at all. Mr. R. McCallum (Wairau) said that Parliament had never been consulted at all in connection with the appointment of King's counsel. Mr. Bell said that if in future King's counsel were debarred from practising as solicitors it would give the present King's counsel a monopoly, which was not right. The Hon. A. L. Herdman said that the present Government was not responsible for creating King's counsel in New Zealand. They had found the institution in existence, and he did not propose to discuss the matter at all. A deputation of barristers had waited upon him to complain that .King's counsel made a practise of employing junior counsel merely as a matter of form and not in order to enable them to take actual part in the litigation. He understood that a circular letter drafted by a K.C. in Dunedin was going through New Zealand in reply to what he (the Minister) had said to the deputation. He was fully alive to the necessity of making King's counsel realise that they were the protectors of the profession, and that, .therefore, they should not employ juniors as a matter of form, but should really permit juniors to take some active and genuine part in the litigation.