The Poverty Bay Herald AND East Coast News Letter PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING THURSDAY, MAY 18, 1879.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 696, 15 May 1879, Page 2

The Poverty Bay Herald AND East Coast News Letter PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING THURSDAY, MAY 18, 1879.

The New Zealand Government is about to take what we consider a very prudent step in regard to our stipendiary magistrates. This is to shift them once in every three years from where they have been sitting, to some other centre. The necessity of this is very obvious to those who have given full weight to the consideration of the matter. A resident magistrate in a small community cannot avoid identifying himself with members of a community among whom he becomes on terms of intimacy and friendship. He is invited out among Bmall coteries ; takes a lead in society, which is limited, and consequently he is more likely to be influenced unconsciously by his surroundings. A case may come, often has come, before a magistrate, where he has to decide for or against a plaintiff or defendant with whom he has become on intimate terms ; and, although there is no doubt he will /■^minister strict and impartial justi Istill there are those

who, knowing magistrate and plaintiff, or magistrate and defendant, are upon intimate tei'ms, are not able to divest themselves of the belief that a partial and biassed judgment has been delivered. Human nature at the best is only frail, and it is not right that those who preside over the fountains ofjustice shouldeverbe permitted the chance of falling into temptation. But independent of. these considerations, there are much weighter ones to be taken into accoitnt. We have known a Resident Magistrate who presided in his Court in a town where he had a relative as a lawyer ; and every man knew, if he was required to take a case into Court, that if he did not employ this particular lawyer he had very little chance of gaining his case if that lawyer was on the other side. It may be that the Magistrate's relation, the lawyer, only took good cases in hand, and so always gained the day ; but people could not be brought to believe this, and do not believe to this the present day, but that, under such circumstances, this Magistrate always gave a decision not according to equity, but in accordance with his leanings. We know of another Resident Magistrate, who was frequently intoxicated when presiding on the Bench. He was what is called a "jolly good fellow." He mixed with a drinking set of men, and, although, for months and months attempts were made to get him removed from the Bench, the the attempts were not successful. This Magistrate borrowed money from the Court bailitf ; from the officials of the Court ; from all sorts of people who would lend him money, either to secure his interest, or have their thumb upon him. Probably this Resident Magistrate was one oi the cleverest and ablest who has sat in a New Zealand Court. Had this man have been removed from the seat of his temptations, he would have, at least, had a chance of retrieving himself, or had he not done so, he would not have had so many " hail-fellows-well-met " to use thenexertions to retain him in his place. Another Magistrate we know of, who took an unconquerable dislike to a solicitor who practised in the Court, over which he presided, and this solicitor, although a most, conscious, able, and upright man, and a master of his profession, had to leave the place and district for a new and distant Held. A Magistrate located permanently in a town can always secure enough friends who will be ready to shield him from his malpractices. We strongly advocate the proposed system of changing the paid Magistrates from time to time. The directors of Banks find it good policy to make such changes with their managers, and managers, as a rule, like it. As in the case with Magistrates, unless they lead the life of a recluse, they, too, go into society, and it is hard for a man who has drunk wine and played shilling or half-crown points at whist with a friend, to have to refuse him the accommodation he asks for a day or two after, both being shut up in a private parlor. In large towns and cities there cannot be such pressure brought to bear upon an administrator of the law, or a bank manager, but in small communities it is altogether different. We notice that a petition has been forwarded to the Minister of Justice, signed by the whole of the members of the legal profession on the West Coast, in which it says : — " We, the under- " signed, members of the legal pro- " fession, residing and practising on " the West Coast of New Zealand, " have the honor to state that we fully "approve of the action of the Govern- " ment in changing the Resident " Magistrates and Wardens, and think " that throughout the Colony, and " particularly in the more thinly " populated districts, there should be " adopted the principle of perodical '* changes and removal of those " officers, and that such changes should " be made every three years at least. " That we believe such a principle is " calculated to secure the administra- " tion ofjustice free from local or per- " sonal influence. We would therefore " urge the Government most strongly " to adhere to the proposed changes, " and not to allowitself to be influenced " by local pressure brought to bear by " private friends or individuals."

"We presume the necessity of a change of Magistrates on the West Coast has been felt in a marked degree to have caused such a petition to be drawn up and forwarded to the Minister of Justice. But the principle is an excellent one, be the Magistrate a good or bad, or an indifferent Magistrate. It was Judge a Beckett, the greatest of all Victorian Judges, who refused to allow himself to take his seat on the bench in a civil case, because he had had a serious quarrel on a private matter with the defendant. No one doubted the rectitude of Judge a Beckett ; but he doubted himself, because he believed his judgment might be influenced by an " unconscious bias." Probably it would have been so, for the Judge was a man of strong prejudices, and he knew himself better than others knew him.