ELSIE WALKER CASE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20402, 2 November 1929, Page 10

ELSIE WALKER CASE.

REOPENING OF INQUESTS. OBJECTIONS TO PROPOSAL, some; judicial principles. THE FINDINGS OF CORONERS, li 7 riIOFESSOR It. M. ALGXE. The domand for a reopening of the Elsie Walker case 7 has now reached its highest intensity: We aro told that a petition bearing some fifteen thousand signatures has been presented to Parliament. What will be the result, and what would be pained even if the inquest were reopened ? These are interesting questions and they touch upon matters of far-reaching importance. It is sometimes a wise plan to turn aside from' a contemplation of the rights and wrongs of any one particular case and to examine the broader issues that are involved. It has already been authoritatively stated that this inquest will not be reopened, but no very convincing reasons were put forward in support of this decision. Good reasons there are in plenty; and .they should have been given at the time. Had this course been adopted,, much popular clamour might have been avoided, and an appeal to Parliament, based partly, one would think, upon a mild form of hysteria, would have been unnecessary. First of all, wo should remember that a very lull inquiry has already been held. If a second inquest be conducted, there are two possible advantages that might be gained. In tho first place some person who has valuable information to disclose may be afforded an opportunity of disclosing it. But. there is no necessity to expend a large amount of public money solely to achieve this end. People who have anything useful to communicate or any reasonably sound theories to advance may quite properly place their facts or their theories before the proper police authorities. If the police had anything whatever to go upon, tho public can rest as-. 6ured that the criminal law would very speedily be set in motion, and a definite charge would be laid before the ordinary Courts of the land. The second possible advantage that might be gained by reopening the inquest is that some person who has interest in concealing the truth may by the processes of examination and cross-examina-tion be compelled to divulge matters which he would gladly withhold. A close study of tho details of the present case leads one to the view that this second purpose is not very likely to succeed. A Wider Question. But, beyond all this, there is the wider question, Should inquests in general be subject to the rule that they can be reopened if it appears that additional light might be thrown upon the cause of some obscure tragedy ? Those who are familiar with legal /processes would no doubt at once answer this question in tho negative: and the public may safely accept such an answer in the present instance. Tho reasons in support are easily given. To begin with, it is in the public interest that, when an inquest is being hold, every possible endeavour should be made to see that all available information is produced to thei coroner at that time. If those whose duty it is to produce such evidence knew that a second or even a third inquest could be held, this fact might induce them to be careles3 or slack in the collection and sifting of all the available material. Again, the decision of a coroner's inquest is treated as being on the' same footing as thß judgment of a Court: While such decision stands, it must be accepted as true. The law could never be properly administered if the judgments of the Courts could be freely ignored and fresh inquiries held simply because it was felt that some further evidence was forthcoming. Only on very stringent conditions can a new trial be allowed on the ground that' further evidence is available, and, although we have had centuries of coroners' inquests, it has never been thought worth while to depart from the rule above referred to. Again, if it be conceded that an inquest can be reopened once, then there is no logical reason why it should not be reopened again and yet again as occasion may arise. _ Surely it is better that matters of this kind shonld be well and thoroughly done in the first instarico than that they shonld be constantly and perhaps needlessly revived with great cost to the State and with consequent expense, annoyance, and even pain to the relatives of those who are most intimately concerned. Public Interest Protected, Finally, there is the point that ample protection of the public interest exists without violating well-established legal principles in order to satisfy the demands of individuals in particular may bo safely asserted that nothing_ is now likely to be gained from a reopening of this inquest which cannot be achieved by existing legal processes independently of inquest 3 altogether. One may well quote a passage from a judgment from Lord Cockburn, a former Lord Chief Justice of England, who had to consider the very question that, is now troubling the public mind of this; country, and who had the advantage of hearing a very able argument on the subject: Hisi Lordship said:—"We have the authority of Lord Hale, a.nd the uniform course of practice in support of tho proposition, that a coroner cannot hold a second inquest while the decision ill the first is still existing. If the coroner were allowed to hold two inquests the greatest' inconvenience might arise from the incon-nis.t-ent findings of the respective Courts. Jn holding an inquest the coroner performs ;t judicial duty. . . and he can hold no second inquest in the same case unless the first has been quashed by regular process in this Court." Such is the law, and it is to he hoped that for once politicians may find it better to follow accepted judicial principles of long standing than to yield too attentive an ear to popular clamour. It is muqh to be desired that no amendment of the esisting Jaw in the direction asked for will he made.