INDUSTRIAL MAGISTRATES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22853, 7 October 1937, Page 10

INDUSTRIAL MAGISTRATES

The appointment of industrial magistrates to deal with some of the work that now comes before the Arbitration Court and also to take cases under labour legislation now heard by stipendiary magistrates is to be provided for in an amendment to the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act that is being drafted. Relief for the Arbitration Court is a matter of urgency. It faces an accumulation of business that is overwhelming. No matter what hours the judge and his assessors work after their duties on the bench are ended, long delays in hearing and deciding award and compensation matters arc inevitable. Such a state of affairs is neither fair to the personnel of the Court nor to the workers and employers concerned. Delay is particularly undesirable when compensation for injury is the issue. Apart from the inevitable effect upon the health of the plaintiff there is the important question of his maintenance, seeing that payment of compensation usually ceases when the writ is issued. Yet in the majority of cases the justice of the claim is admitted, the sole matter in dispute being the amount legally due. Where applications for awards are concerned one of the evils of long delay is that cost of living standards may change in the interim and another is that employers may be confronted with retrospective payments which may be an embarrassment. It has often been suggested that pressure on the Arbitration Court could be cased if compensation cases were referred to the Supreme Court or if a-special Court were created to hear them. The Minister, however, has decided in favour of the appointment of industrial magistrates who, he says, are to form a link between conciliation councils and the Court. Their precise function has yet to be explained, but it is to be hoped that they will ensure considerable expedition and some measure of leisure for the judge of the Arbitration Court and his j associates.