CASE FOR COURT OF APPEAL

Southland Times, Issue 24437, 17 May 1941, Page 4

CASE FOR COURT OF APPEAL

QUESTION OF SENTENCES ON CHRISTIAN PACIFISTS

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, May 16. A request by the Solicitor-General that his Honour should state a case for the Court of Appeal in regard to the Court sentencing five members of the Christian Pacifist Society, each of whom had been found guilty during the present criminal sessions of a breach of the Public Safety Regulations, was conveyed to the Chief Justice, Sir Michael Myers, in the Supreme Court today by the Crown Prosecutor, Mr C. H. Weston, K.C. The question was whether the prisoners, who were sentenced to three months’ imprisonment last month in the Magistrate’s Court for wilfully obstructing the police, could or should receive additional sentences for other breaches of the regulations in respect to the same prohibited meetings. The Chief Justice, who had previously directed Mr Weston to have the question argued before him, agreed that in the public interest the point should be determined by a Court consisting of more than one judge. He said he would refuse to add to the sentences unless satisfied it would be in accordance with both the letter and spirit of the law. The application was a perfectly proper one, he said, and he would draft a case for the Court of Appeal.