PROTECTION FOR MAGISTRATES

Southland Times, Issue 23287, 25 August 1937, Page 6

PROTECTION FOR MAGISTRATES

JUDGE SUPPORTS MR J. H. LUXFORD

(United Press Association) AUCKLAND, August 24.

Support of the contention by Mr J. H. Luxford S.M. that protection should be given to magistrates was expressed by Mr Justic Ostler when interviewed at the Supreme Court this morning. “A most important function of the State is the impartial administration of justice,” said his Honour. “Human experience has shown that the safest and best way of ensuring the pure administration of justice is the absolute independence of those engaged in its administration. After the unfortunate experience of subservient judges during periods of the Stuarts in England that independence was finally provided, so far as the judges are concerned, in the Act of Settlement of 1701. So important was the principle considered that it has been ever since enshrined in every democratic constitution based on the English model and it is to be found in the constitutions of the United States of America of all the Australian colonies and of New Zealand. In addition to the constitutional position of judges making them independent of the executive the English law has for a long time provided that judges shall be 'absolutely immune from civil liability for anything they say or do in the execution of their duty. “As pointed out by Mr Luxford this rule was devised not for the protection of the judges but for the benefit of the public. The surest way of providing for the purity and independence of the administration of justice is to provide that those engaged in the administration should be put in a position of independence and freedom from fear of the consequences. Then if men of high character are chosen that is the best system human thought can devise. There is no reason, to my mind, why magistrates should not be put in the same position with judges in being both independent of the executive and immune from the consequences of their acts, done without malice and in the execution of their duty.”