THE KING AND THE LAW.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20704, 30 April 1929, Page 8

THE KING AND THE LAW.

AN 'ANCIENT LEGAL MAXIM. “CAN DO NO WRONG.” PROPOSED BRITISH, REFORM. • It is an ancient legal maxim that, the ■. King can do - no wrong. Taken literally, ■ that would, of course,, as a-writer in ah -V English newspaper remarks, be an. absurd - thing to say of any human being. “In Stuart days Englishmen were asked to take, it literally, and instead they’'disposed of the King himself.. - Inmodern times the maxim h&s generally been under* . stood to mean that the King, must be kept out of _all controversy, and that when his subjects dislike;' things done" in* his name their quarrel is with bis Ministers a nd net with the King himself. .•■ What many people'do not realise,.however, it that there, is & : sense in which * this maxim applies in law to-day, not only to the king, but to all-his Ministers, and even to' the humblest official acting under instruction from these' Ministers, Things, done by these • people under Government authority are legally things, done by the Crown, and because “ the Bang can v do no wrong British citizens to-day sire debarred from bringing actions' against the Crown for wrongs they, may consider done them in the King’s.name. If an _ordinary motor van ; carelessly driven injures a person or his property be has his remedy not only against the driver —who may have no money out of which, to pay damages—but jagainst the owner of • the lorry. But is the case of a post office motor van in Great -Britain, only the driver is liable, because the King can do no wrong. That is to say, a subject may hot sue the Crown. * In practice, of course, the post office. will give compensation. of its oWn free ’ will; but it'does so as an: get of: grace, not because it must. There have been remarkable cases in Britain, however,i in which .Government' departments; : >-under the protection, of this rule, have been guilty of extraordinary harshness and' injustice. / There is a famous case in which the. Canadian Government refused to pay salvage for one of its ships and their crew, rescued at sea •at great ■ peril and expense. The Privy Council, to whom the rescuers appealed, had to admit that it.was able to do nothing.' Seven years ago the Lord Chancellor appointed a committee-to consider these'’ and after five years of deliberation the' committee recommended a Bill making _it possible to proceed against the Crown in the law courts in the same way as against any of its subjects, and giving the courts the same authority to decide" such actions. This was to be done, but not by a declaration of the' rights of the case, on which the Crown woT-Jd act as a matter of course. The Crown was to be made liable for any wrongful act done by any of its officers on its behalf. The writer adds:—" The Bill has the ‘ unanimous support of thewhble legal profession, whose leaders ' have repeatedly asked that it should be passed into law. No one has publicly opposed'it, yet the Government does nothing. The Government says the Bill is controversial, which means that somebody would oppose it. Nobody knows who that ‘somebody’; is, unless it is the very departments whose powers the Bill would limit and control. As for most ordinary people, most ordinarily honest people,, they will, we are sure, be in favour of the Bill, believing that the Crcum; whether it can do no wrong or not, must by all means be given the power to do right.”-