ELECTION PETITION COSTS.
The decision of the Election Court with regard to the costs of the Northern Maori election petition should have a salutary effect. It is essential to the purity of elections that the Court should be available for the thorough investigation of all seriously disputed contests, but it is none the less desirable that official returns should not be open to challenge on frivolous grounds. Heat is inseparable from an election contest. In the vast majority of cases it is hopeless to expect either candidate to take a judicial view of the election proceedings. If election petitions are allowed to become cheap—if the petitioner does not run the risk of having to meet the costs when he fails to establish his case— they nky easily become so numerous as to be a serious tax upon the time of the Supreme Court judges. In the Northern Maori case there was no good ground for the petition and the costs have rightly fallen on those who needlessly appealed for a hearing in the Election Court.
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New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15864, 10 March 1915, Page 6
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175ELECTION PETITION COSTS. New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15864, 10 March 1915, Page 6
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