PUBIC DEFENDERS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14281, 1 August 1908, Page 8

PUBIC DEFENDERS.

The Department of Justice seems to have clearly exposed itself to the criticism which has been directed against its action in respect of the x , prosecution for perjury that is., the outcome of the recent murder trial on the West Coast. It appears that counsel has been provided for the accused, because he is entirely without means. This has been done in accordance with what Mr M'Gowan calk the usual practice iu such caws, though as Mr Wilford points out, the "practice" is really so unusual ss to bs extremely rare, while the circumstances are rendered the more extraordinary by reason of the fact tjiat the counsel. ifo lugs <assgit to tta awawjjj

is the' Crown Prosecutor for the district. and ,4hat it is alleged that the assistance of the police is also being afforded to the defence. It is the duty of the .Crown to see, as far as possible, that the facte shall he fully elicited, whether these are favourable or unfavourable, to the accused, but there is an element of grot-esqueness in the appearance of the Crown Prosecutor for the district as counsel for a person against whom lie may conceivably be required to present an indictment at the Supreme Court, (hit of the special circumstances of this case emerges an important question of public policy, to which Mr Wilford adverted on Wednesday— namely, that of whether there should bo public defenders as well as public prosecutors. In regard to this matter wo are not so far advanced as Great Britain is, for an.Act was passed by •the Imperial Parliament in 1903 under which provision is made whereby, on tile certificate of tho committing justices upon tho committal of the •prisoner for trial or of the judge of a court of assize or of the chairman of a court of quarter sessions, poor prisoners may have counsel assigned to ■them. Tho proposals of this measure were strongly supported at the time by members of both branches of the legal profession without respect to political party, and it is of interest to recall that the. principle under which the Crown provides for the defence of poor p-nsoaens was warmly favoured by Sir James Stephen, who was-one of the greatest criminal lawyers of the latter half of the nineteenth century. The disadvantages that are suffered by a prisoner who is without means and who is unable to secure for himself the protection that is afforded by the service of a skilled adviser were forcibly represented by Sir James Stephen. He thought that, in certain cases there might be some validity in the argument that tho proof must be so plain in order to convict the prisoner that no counsel could contend against it. But, he said, "if tho slightest, complication is introduced, if tho facts are at all numerous, if the witnesses, cither lie or conceal tho truth, an ordinary man deeply ignorant of law and intensely interested in the result of the trial and excited by it is in practice Utterly helpless if he lias no one to advise him." Further, he wrote: "Anyone who has ever acted as an advocate knows what it is to be called upon to defend a man at a moment's notice. To defend a prisoner efficiently is a task which makes considerable demands on the readiness, presence of mind, and facility of comprehension of » man trained to possess and use those faculties. That an uneducated man should do himself justice on such an occasion is a moral There is, it will be seen, a sound reason why, in the interests of justice, provision should be made for the public dsfonoo of accused persons who are without the means to arrange for their own defence just as much as for the public prosecution of prisoners, and the law which was enacted by the Imperial Parliament five years ago supplies a sufficient precedent for similar legislation by colonial Parliaments.