BUREAUCRACY IN WAR-TIME

Southland Times, Issue 25692, 29 June 1943, Page 3

BUREAUCRACY IN WAR-TIME

Views Of Magistrate

(P.A.) AUCKLAND, June 28. The dangers of bureaucracy under war conditions were discussed by the Magistrate, Mr J. H. Luxford, in addressing Auckland Rotarians today. He said'the Civil Service in New Zealand had a long way to go before anyone would be justified in saying it had become an evil thing; indeed, it was a service of which any country might well be proud and all responsible members of the community were anxious that its great reputation should remain untarnished. Hence the concern lest anything should creep into the Public Service which might tend to make it a law unto itself. The first great bulwark was the right of every citizen, whose liberty was involved, to appeal to the courts of justice presided over by an independent and publicly respected judiciary. The second great bulwark should be the establishment of the principle that no administrative officer should do an act in the name of the law which, if done by an individual, would be publicly condemned. Mr Luxford asked whether the dignity or sovereign power of Parliament would be lessened if some specially constituted tribunal were given the power to suspend, on an application by an aggrieved party, the operation of a section of an Act or the cause of an Order-in-Coun-cil if its enforcement might lead to evil or unjust consequences which the Legislature could not have had in mind. He did not think so. The adoption of such a principle would go a long way towards ensuring a feeling that the State existed for all citizens. The true repository of sovereign power in a democracy was not Parliament, but the people themselves, and that must be remembered, even in a time of war, when some partial surrender of power to the executive was necessary.