THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Tuesday, August 10, 1943. GOOD LAWS AND BAD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25300, 10 August 1943, Page 2

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Tuesday, August 10, 1943. GOOD LAWS AND BAD

One may suspect jurists and legislators o? an amiable conceit when they assert, as occasionally happens, that nothing is law that is not reason. For it would be a large claim to make that laws are invariably as good, or as effective when it comes to administration, as the intention that gives rise to them. If it were otherwise—if, that is to say, laws governing the conduct of society were in all circumstances a perfect expression of the public will —there would be no occasion for magistrates and others charged with the interpretation and enforcement of them to record from time to time the gravest doubts as to their reasonableness, or to deal almost apologetically with offenders who have transgressed the law as it is written. No sections of the Dominion’s law come in for more critical discussion than those dealing with gaming and with the sale and consumption of alcoholic liquor. Yet, despite repeated magisterial promptings, many of them sharply pointed as to meaning and direction, the rationalising of these contentious statutes seems to be viewed by politicians and social reformers as a problem for debate rather than for action. How often is it laid down by a magistrate that “the Bench has a duty to administer the law irrespective of how bad, absurd or illogical we may think it is”? Mr Luxford, S.M., used those words in Auckland a .few weeks ago in disposing of a charge of bookmaking. And they were, in substance, used again in Invercargill a few days ago by Mr Abernethy, S.M., when he was giving judgment in cases in which four clubs were charged with keeping' liquor for sale and their officials with aiding and abetting the offences. In the Auckland case counsel protested that his client did not seek men to bet, but was sought by men anxious to place bets. He submitted that the legislature was “lagging a little behind public opinion,” to which the magistrate retorted meaningly, “A little behind? ” “ Well,” observed counsel, “ perhaps a great deal behind.” It is indeed obvious, and has been for a very long time, that the situation is thus accurately summed up. It is possible to accept without question the magistrate’s further comment that “ promiscuous betting with bookmakers, which is against the law, is one of the most inimical things we have,” particularly for young people who “ see the law being flouted." The remedy lies in improving the law. The bookmaker would find small scope for, and smaller profit in, his underground activities if measures were taken, not in the negative direction of attempting to put him out of business by periodical prosecutions, but in the direction of bringing betting under stricter control through the channels legally provided for the purposes. In the Invercargill liquor cases the magistrate was at pains to emphasise that the offending clubs were well conducted and represented “ a body of some 700 reputable citizens such as one would expect to find in any properly organised social club.” He admitted, moreover, that there were “some dicta and some authorities providing some justification for the belief that some members have . . . the ultimate right to drink their own legally acquired liquor in their own club in a no-licence area.” , The law, however, did not bestow, that right, and the court could only enforce the Licensing Act as it stood. But, added the magistrate, “ enforcement of the law can only make good laws permanent while it marks bad laws with a spotlight, bringing sometimes at long last the amendments that the good sense of the public, acquired by trial and error, eventually demands.” These are by no means new or novel expressions of an expert view, as applied to the need for intelligent reform of the country’s licensing and gaming laws. They merely remark upon what the average citizen has had more than adequate opportunity to observe for himself. And they remark also on the curious blindness of the legislature over a long period of years.