“ORGY OF LAWS”

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19106, 29 August 1936, Page 15

“ORGY OF LAWS”

MAGISTRATE’S CONFESSION SYMPATHY WITH LAYMAN That even a magistrate or lawyer may be ignorant of certain laws was admitted bv Mr. J. H. Lux ford, 8.M., when speaking on “The Legal -Machine at a luncheon of the Wellington Returned Soldiers’ Association. - * \ great deal lias been said in public, and probably a great deal more in private, about the orgy oi laws and legulations. State, departmental and niiinnipal, that have been inflicted on the community during the last two or three decades arid in ever-increasing volume, said Mr. Luxford. “The average man resigns, himself to such mercy as the courts of justice will extend to him, because he feels inevitably, sooner oi la lei, he must, be caught in the meshes of the multitude of legal nets iorever being cast at him. Of course, lie tries to dodge them, and he has the assistance ol an ancient and honourable profession to help him—for a consideration —in becoming more expert in the art, “Quite frankly my sympathies go out to the layman, who is barred from pleading ignorance of the law, especially as I know that there is .not a .lawyer, in practice who has not learned lor the first time wiseri he is instructed to deJoml the delinquent that penalties have been prescribed for certain acts or omission.-, I might say, also, that a magistrate is sometimes in the same position when called upon to sit in judgment.