JUDICIAL CHANGES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20433, 13 June 1928, Page 14

JUDICIAL CHANGES.

THE APPELLATE FUNCTION. The recent judicial changes in England call attention to the peculiar constitution of the Court of Appeal (writes a legal correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph). Doubt was even cast some time ago upon the claim of its members to be regarded as “ judges ” in the same sense as the other judges. It replaced the Exchequer Court, which was for centuries the Court of Consultation, and afterwards the Court of Error, and has been described by a learned authority as “ a more stately and in many respects a more competent tribunal.” It was established by the Judicature Acts of the ’seventies, and performs some duties which formerly did not belong to the judicial office. Although it is a superior tribunal, empowered to revise the decisions of courts of first instance, its members need not necessarily have been judges of first instance. Lord Justice Moulton and Lord Justice Duke were examples to the contrary; they are appointed by the Prime Minister, not, like the puisne judges, by the Lord Chancellor, though the Lord Chancellor is invariably consulted. The salary, except that of the Master of the Rolls, is precisely the same that of a puisne judge, £SOOO a year, though the retiring allowance is slightly larger. The matter of their proper definition arises in this way. Whenever so disposed, the Law Lords, if confronted with particularly difficult points, may summon the puisne judges to give them counsel and advice. This was done in 1807, when the famous leading trade union case, Allen v. Flood, was before them, but when it came to the members of the Court of Appeal, the contention was seriously advanced that by reason of their exceptional constitution they were not “ judges ” entitled to be consulted, and in fact they were excluded from the invitation.