THE PORIRUA CASE.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXIV, Issue 4951, 29 April 1903, Page 5

THE PORIRUA CASE.

COMMENTS ON THE NEW ZEALAND JU DUES' REMARKS. SYDNEY, April 28. The federal Premier (Sir Edmund Barton), referring to tho criticisms of tho New Zealand Judges on the Privy Council, said ho traced in the remarks a curious similarity to criticisms often passed hero in legal circles. Without giving a personal opinion, he pointed out that at the present moment the House of Lords was not a Court of Appeal for cases arising in the colonies, nor is tho Privy Council a Court of Appeal generally speaking for- cases arising within the United Kingdom. The Privy Councillors’ conclusions took tho form of advice to the Crown, and not of judgments in the ordinary sense of tho term. Hence difficulty seemed to be felt in many legal minds in regard to the fusing of the House of Lords "and tho Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, or adopting either of thorn for a final Court of Appeal. Dealing with the confecenco held in 1901 to discuss the question of a final Court of Appeal, at -which Mr Justice Hodges represented tho Commonwealth, and Sir James Prendergast New Zealand, Sir Edmund said the delegates from tho self-governing colonies in the main did not support Mr Justice Hedges, lienee matters remained as they were. Several members of the federal Parliament have accepted the Now Zealand Judges’ remarks as an additional argument in favour of the early establishment of a federal High Court.