THE ASSESSMENT COURT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20244, 2 May 1929, Page 12

THE ASSESSMENT COURT.

Finality should now be attainable in the) protracted litigation concerning the valuation of a leasehold occupied by the Colonial Sugar Company in the Birkenhead borough, for the Supreme Court has given such specific directions to the Assessment Court that it cannot longer evade its duty. It is rarely necessary for a Court, in reviewing the proceedings of an inferior judicial tribunal, to attribute an erroneous judgment to obduracy or stupidity, as Mr. Justice Blair has done in censuring the failure of the assessors in this case to obey previous directions by the Supreme Court. Yet the record of the proceedings extending oyer five years contains full justification for this exceptional rebuke. The two lay assessors have persistently defied the judgment of the Supreme Court and the directions of the president of the Assessment Court, stultifying a legal principle that has been clearly expounded for their instruction and perpetuating a travesty of justice. This extraordinary situation is attributable to other causes as well as the attitude of the assessors. One of them is appointed by the Government: surely it is the Government's responsibility to make certain that its nominee either understands the principles of the Valuation Act or is at least able to appreciate and act on directions by the Supreme Court. There is the further question of the original valuation. It was made by the Valuation Department and supported at the hearing of an appeal by a departmental valuer. Yet that valuation is shown to have been determined without regard to the principle of a judgment by the Supreme Court in another case. In view of that fact, there would seem to be need of instructing the Valuation Department to abide by the law and especially to heed its interpretations by the Supreme Court. The most pressing necessity, however, is an amendment of the Assessment Court's constitution by the abolition of the lay assessors, who are at least superfluous and, as this case has proved, can be the cause of mischievous interference with the law. The Court has had, since 192(\ a permanent president, with jurisdiction throughout the Dominion, who is both an authority on the law and an expert in matters of land valuation, especially in regard to evidence of values. As the Court is now constituted, the two lay assessors can override the president's judgment on points of law and questions of fact. That an appellate tribunal should be liable to such ridiculous stultification is manifestly a grave matter calling for remedial action by Parliament^

THE MAYORAL ELECTION. The mayoral contest in the city, which resulted in the return of Mr. Baildon for a further term, offers the only basis on which the state of opinion in the electorate and its manifestation at the poll can be discussed. In the council election, thanks partly to the method of voting, partly to the many cross-cur-rents operating, it is an impossible task to find any clear-cut verdict. The challenge to the retiring Mayor was almost wholly on the record and the performances of Mayor and council in the immediate past. The result shows that no one of his challengers was able to bring home the charge sufficiently and present an alternative in convincing enough fashion to secure a change. It may be argued that with all the majority he was given above the next candidate Mr. Baildon was returned on a minority vote. So he was, but when the number of votes polled is compared with the number of electors on the roll, it is perfectly obvious that the great volume of indignation and discontent said to exist over city management was not sufficient to bring out more than half of the enfranchised public to express it. There lay unused plenty of votes to reverse the result in favour of any one of the other candidates. The fact that they were not used shows that those who based the mayoral campaign on the urgent need for a change failed by a very great margin to bring their appeal home. Something more than the destructive criticism which .was the dominant note is needed to produce a practical response itrom the public. It would be wrong, however, to imagine that the verdict of yesterday's poll was an endorsement of all that has been done in the past term, a declaration that the administration has been perfect. It was rather a rejection of the methods and policies of those who offered themselves in substitution for the outgoing Mayor. The general tone of the campaign and the high proportion of people who let the election go by default point' irresistibly to .this conclusion. There is still ample room for improvement, and improvement there should be. The first step toward securing it would be an awakening of interest that would produce better figures at an election day. In that eventuality lies the chief hope of those who would like to see many things done differently in the city, yet cannot be convinced that a demand to have all the retiring administrators swept out of public life, unaccompanied by substantial promises of better things to follow, is the way to achieve this end. To these deductions from the mayoral contest, it is necessary only to offer Mr. Baildon congratulations on having been at the head of the poll against an opposition lacking nothing in intensity, whatever its other characteristics may have been.