DEFECTS IN THE LAW

New Zealand Times, Volume XLII, Issue 9788, 11 October 1917, Page 2

DEFECTS IN THE LAW

STRANGS CASE MENTIONED NEED FOR MORE PADDED CELLS ’ ’ - URGED’ IN PARIAMENT. Tho A to L. Committee reported favourably to the House of Representatives yesterday, on' tho petition for redress of ."the wife of a Morrinsvillo resi--dent-. Her husband, it was stated, was adinited to the Waikato Hospital, suffering from the effects of liquor. He became violent, and, there being no padddd coll - to spare, he was turned out into tho road and arrested tor -.-drunkenness. He, was sent to the Auckland. Gaol, and there, for want ol proper attention, battered his Head against .'a stone, with tho result mar ’ho was now mentally deranged, and likely to: remain so. S.r John Findlay, M.P. for Hawke’s Bay, said that, the case illustrated a detect in the present law. The man ■had committed no ottence known to the law, but ho was involuntarily forced- to commit a punishable offence, and, that was'the complains of his relatives. It might be that that was the only way in which, under the present state of the law, he could be legally removed from tho hospital to where he could he taken care of; but that showed a defect in the law. vv hy should there not be a provision in the law, to enable tho authorities to remove a,man from hospital in such Circumstances to a place where he could bo taken care of? The case was by no means an isolated one, and ho urged upon the Government that steps should bo taken to remedy the defect in the G W. Russell (Minister for Public Health): “Tho trouble was that there was nobody but tho police to of the man.” Sir .John Findlay said that the system was a remnant of the old absurd doctrine that the police authorities could not take charge of a man unless ho was a lunatic or had committed an offence.- -That doctrine could be carried too far.' The lawyers of the House; ;ho ‘suggested, might well occupy themselves in a great deal of the idle time they had in endeavouring to amend what they knew to he techmcal defects in. tlie'law. He would bo glad, with other, legal members m the .House,'to give his time, when the lay members, were talking, to do useful VT< Mr" C. E. Stathnm (Dunedin Central) resented- "the suggestion that lawyer members had a great ( deal of spare time.'’ (Daughter.)Mr J. Vigor Brown, M.P. for Napier, said .that the case pointed to the need, for more padded cells in the hospitals. ; If the one padded cell in the Waikato Hospital had not been already occupier! at the time, the case would not have happened. Ho urged that tho -Minister for Public Works should, sec : to it /that the hospitals in towns, with 10,000 to 12,000 inhabitants should Have at -least two padded cells.