JUDGES' SALARIES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21643, 13 May 1932, Page 5

JUDGES' SALARIES

ARGUMENTS AGAINST CUT VIEWS OF LEGAL PROFESSION. “When, as in the last few weeks, there has been a certain amount of criticism following the non-application of civil service and other wage cuts to the salaries of the judges of our Supreme Court, it is clear that our people have come to take for granted the purity of those who hold high judicial office.” states the latest issue of the New Zealand Law Journal, in an editorial expression of the views of the legal profession on the controversy recently raised concerning the salaries of judges. The article adds:—“The critics forget that our popular liberty is based on the fact that the independence of our highest courts has been secured only after centuries of struggle between the common people, on the one side, and the Crown or the party for the time being in office on the other. “ We have won the complete removal of the members of our judiciary from all outside influence; we have made their office a permanent one, and not merely a passing reward for services rendered to a political party, subjecting them to be blown in and out of office as the popular fancy changes direction; we have secured for ourselves a body of high-principled and intellectually eminent men who will stand four-square to every menace of the people’s freedom, and, in pursuance of their oath of office, resist every encroachment upon it by upholding the laws of the country and keeping the scales of justice even, as between the Crown and the subject, and between the executive and the citizen. “These critics also forget that the vices and passions that spring from human nature are substantially the same in every age; and they do not pause to remind themselves that the plague of corruption must be stayed by destroying the germs from which it may arise. Public confidence in the even-handed dispensation of justice has been established in British lands only since the passing of the Act of Settlement in the year 1700. And it is essential that this impartial exercise of the judicial function should be most carefully maintained. By that Act provision was made for safeguarding our liberty by securing that judges’ appointments remain in force during their good behaviour and be revocable only on an address to the Sovereign by both Houses of the Legislature, and that their salaries be ascertained and established before they take office. “ Consequently, we feel that the criticism to which we have alluded has been launched without a knowledge of the historical incidents that led to the establishment of this all-important principle and its statutory expression. If Parliament could alter the amount of judicial salaries on the grounds of economy, there would be a ready excuse at hand for subsequent reductions prompted by less worthy motives. In this, as in everything else, it is the first step that counts; and a step aside from the haulwon position of judicial independence of current circumstances —even if it be prompted by a sympathetic desire on the part of the judges to share the burdens of their fellow-men or by the urge of economic considerations on the part of Parliament—must be stoutly resisted by all on whom the lessons of history are not altogether lost.”