SUPREME COURT JUDGES.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 November 1923, Page 3

SUPREME COURT JUDGES.

QUESTION OF APPOINTMENT. STATEMENT BY SIR FRANCIS BELL. By Telegraph—Press Association. Wellington, Nov. 13. Recently the Wellington Law Society forwarded the following resolution to Sir Francis Bell, Attorney-General, on the subject of the appointment of the Chief Justice and Judges of the Supreme Court: “That, in the emphatic opinion of the council, all appointments to the Supreme Court Bench, including the Chief Justice, should, in the public interest, be filled from the actively practising Bar.” Sir Francis Bell has now forwarded a lengthy answer, in the course of which he says that, he regrets he cannot, concur that any such definite rule should be accepted a» obligatory upon himself as AttorneyGeneral or upon rhe Government, which has the responsibility of appointments to lhe New Zealand Bench. He doubted if the Bar itself would desire such a rule without any exception and points out that such a rule would have precluded the appointment of the late Justice Sir Joshua Williams, who was not a practising barrister at the time he was elevanted to the Bench. With regard to the Chief Justiceship, while expressing the hope that it would be long before that high office was vacant, when it did become vacant it would be the duty of the Government to offer the appointment to the man best fitted to preside over the Bench and hold the dormant commission of Go-vernor-General, whether that man was a practising barrister or already a member of the Bench. The proposition that a Judge once appointed should have no prospects of promotion was one which had ceased to be recognised in England and had not been adopted in New Zealand. He therefore declined to accept a hard end fast rule for the guidance of the Government. The only rule which he could accept was that the man having the statutory qualifications in the opinion of the Government of the day, was best fitted for a place on the Bench, or to preside over the Bench, should be appointed, whenever a vacancy occurred, and that it was the duty of the Government to ignore all other considerations.