The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY). MONDAY, JUNE 26, 1882.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 6611, 26 June 1882, Page 2

The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY). MONDAY, JUNE 26, 1882.

We lately printed the final report of the Commission appointed to inquire into the constitution, practice, and procedure of the several Courts of the colony, presented to Parliament, and in perusing it the first thing to strike even the most casual observer is the amount of labor the preparation of the draft Bills and codes presented with th,e report must have cost. Unlike some other Commissions the members of this one have not been enabled to enjoy a pleasure trip from one end of the colony to the other, and perhaps remit to one member the task of writing up the result of their hurried observations and crude conclusions, but weeks of thought, study, aud discussion have been devoted to the various questions submitted for the consideration of the Commission, aud careful and well considered recommendations are the result. It is, no doubt, disappointing to find that the three senior Judges have ''apparently signed the report with reluctance, expressing in an independent memorandum their waut of confidence in,, some of the new methods of procedure proposed to be introduced. Mr Justice Gillies goes further, and throws cold water on the whole scheme by dissenting pointedly from that paragraph in the report which expressed a belief that the code will lessen expense to suitors and obtain speedy settlement of actions. After a perusal of the code, wo: cannot thiuk that his Honor’s predictions will be realised. Some time back, in treating of the interim report of the Com-

mission, we expressed our belief that, iit view of the extra amount* of work to bo entailed on the Judges by the abolition of District Courts, and in order that the best talent may be obtained, the number and salaries of the Judges should be increased; and we are glad to see that the members of the Commission other than the Judges hare recommended that this step be taken at once. But a matter which we have formerly urged of even greater importance to the public has been recommended by the Commission, namely, that Registrars of the Supreme Court should be professional men of experience, and should be paid such salaries as will secure the services of fit and proper men for a post at all times difficult, but the more so atatime when the whole procedure of the Court is about to undergo a thorough and radical reform. It will, in saving to suitors, repay the cost of increased salaries a hundredfold, if men are selected of sufficient ability, honesty, and strength of purpose to carry out the spirit of the new reforms, and determined not to permit a continuance of the tediousness and costliness : of present litigation.

There are two or three clauses in the Supreme Court Bill forwarded with the report which demand attention, and the first is the 11th, which says that “The salary of a Judge shall not be diminished during the continuance of his commission.” This clause is of more importance than would at first sight appear, and is one of which we thoroughly approve. There is at present in the Civil list a sum voted for Judges’ salaries, but under the present state of the law it is appropriated to the different Judges as the Government see fit. It thus leaves in the hands of a venal Government the power of attempting to coerce a Judge by reducing his salary. This should not be. A Judge holds office for life, or during good behavior, and can only be removed from his office by an address from both Houses, and so it should be if the independence of the office is to be maintained. Questions of difficulty have frequently arisen under the existing practice of assigning to each Judge the districts in which alone he shall have jurisdiction, which, by the new procedure, will be obviated, in that any Judge being in any district will be able to transact business there without the necessity of an Order in Council assigning the district to him, or a delegation from the Judge of the district. Sections 25 and 26 seem somewhat out of place in the Supreme Court Act, but deal liberally with a most important question, namely, the power of the Court to grant relief for the breach of a covenant in a lease. As the law at present stands a lessee may absolutely forfeit his lease, and be ejected from the premises by the accidental non-performance of some covenant he has entered into with the landlord, and from tho omission of which the landlord has suffered no loss; but by the sections above quoted a discretion is given to the Court to relieve against the forfeiture of the lease, upon payment of such damages and costs as the Court may deem meet. This will render leasehold property more valuable and of a less precarious nature than it is at present. Turning now to that question which to suitors will seem the most vital of all in the proposed amendment of tho law, that of costs, we find the Commissipn has boldly thrown over all preconceived ideas oil this subject, and made it lawful in the first place for solicitors (sec. 33) to agree with a client as to the amount of past or future services,, either by a gross sum or by commission, percentage, salary, or otherwise, subject to reduction by tho Judge if, in his discretion, it seems unfair, but not liable to be increased by the solicitor. In actions the costs are in the discretion of the Judge, who may direct the amount to be paid, or, if left to tho Registrar, the Judge is empowered to review the discretion of that officer, even in questions as’ to amount, which hitherto has not been the case. Where no direction by the Judge is given, tho code provides a sliding scale of costs for the different substantial proceedings in an action, from a perusal of which it appears that in future the costs of a simple contested case will not, if the rules be properly administered, exceed £2O on each side, increasing proportionately according to the amount involved in or the: difficulty of, the case.. The introduction of some degree of certainty as to the amount of costs an intending litigant may have ; to pay will be especially appreciated by the commercial world. Long bills of costs, .marvellously constructed out of imaginary and unnecessary items, will, it is hoped, disappear, and with them one of the principal causes of complaint against the profession. It is not tho amount of a bill which a client objects to —it is the individual six-and-eight-pences of which it is so largely composed. More credit will be given to the skill and trouble of the solicitor than to the needless copyings of the junior clerks and the sundry attendances of the office boy. We believe much .attention'was devoted, by the Commission to the difficult question of the decision of points of law involved in the proceedings in an action, and the result of their deliberations has been to do away with the right of either party to demur to the sufficiency of the pleading of the opposite side, or to raise the question after verdict by what have hitherto been known as proceedings in error or otherwise; but it is left to the Court, if at any .time it appears that the matter in 'dispute' is one of law only, or that a substantial question of law is involved which'ought to be decided before the trial, to order that the matter of law shall be first argued! Until we have succeeded in doing away with juries in civil cases, and leave the one Court to adjudge both as to questions of law and fact, we cannot overcome the necessity of a. separate adjudication in these matters; and until that time the method of dealing with the question as suggested by the Commission is probably the most satisfactory: that ' can be arrived at. We shall anxiously watch the working of this part of the code when the Act comes into force. We have referred to the most salient points in tho report, and shall take another opportunity of going more minutely into the recommendations of the Commission. The Bills have been referred to a Select Committee to report on, but.we trust the passing of the measures will not be risked by alterations in the scheme so well prepared by tho gentlemen who, have devoted so ‘much time and careful thought to the matter. It is worthy of notice that so groat a. reform in the costliness and tecliohsuess of legal proceedings sliquld. have come from a Commission composed almost exclusively of lawyers.

The motion of Mr Seddou, that the Government should bring down a Bill affirming the principle of compensating members of the House ef Representatives for i their expenses and services, had, at least, ! the credit of being honest. Moat people will be disposed to think that there are at present more important questions than the payment of members demanding immediate attention, and not a few of the electors all over the country will allege pretty freely that, on meeting in Parliament, their representatives attend to their own wants first and to those of the colony afterwards. Of the public sensitiveness on. this point, the hon. member for Kumara could not fail to be aware, and he therefore showed not a little pluck in taking the question by the horns, with the determination that, no matter who might be displeased or what people might say, it should be settled one way or another. There are not a few of his co-legislators who, while sympathising with the principle of the motion, would have shrunk from its open advocacy because of the popular odium which this might incur. But men of Mr Seddon’s build have a constitutional habit of caring little for the adverse opinion of anyone, and do not shrink from doing or saying what seems a disagreeable thing or even a selfish one, provided they think it ought to be done. All parties will heartily agree with Mr Seddon in thinking that the amount to be given to members ought to be fixed by statute, if for no other reason than that of avoiding the unseemliness of an annual debate, which, to a certain extent, compromises the character of the House in the estimation of the country. There may be some doubt whether the disposing of it thus will prevent the question from being raised again; but it might, at all events, be arranged so that the decision come to at the commencement of a new Parliament should not be disturbed while that Parliament lasts. With the novel element in the motion, however, namely, tho payment of members of a sum sufficient not only to cover their expenses, but also to remunerate them for their time and services, there will not by any means be tho same general concurrence. This is an aspect of the question which has not hitherto been before the Legislature or the electorates, and the wisdom of asking the House to endorse the principle involved, before the country has had an opportunity of pronouncing on it, may be doubted. The better way of settling the matter meanwhile would be to make the sum named in the Bill reasonably sufficient without committing the House to a principle on which it might find itself in conflict with the country. The proposal to leave the Upper House out of the consideration, stipulated- for in the motion can only be condemned as a Constitutional mistake. It must be clear to all reasonable men that to ask the Ministry to bring in a Bill fixing the remuneration of representatives to the exclusion of members of the. Legislative Council, is to make the Government instrumental in placing itself in a false position. For the present, at all events, what is granted to the members of the one House must be granted to those of the other also ; for to place the matter on any other footing would be tantamount to declaring that the Upper Chamber is closed against all save men of independent means. What the amount of the remuneration should be will require delicate handling from both the Government and the-House, and care must be taken lest in this matter they give offence to the good sense of the constituencies. If they do accept, the responsibility of increasing the sum at present awarded, it is to be hoped, for their reputation, that they will be able to justify their action by some better reason than the one advanced by the for Dunedin East, that three hundred guineas will render the representatives superior to the temptation of bribery.