COURT PROCEDURE.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 July 1930, Page 10

COURT PROCEDURE.

An instance of the danger to long established rights brought about by Order-in-Council legislation was made public last week by Air. W. D. Campbell, Crown Solicitor at Timaru. He referred to what is the virtual abolition of the right of litigants to have civil cases tried before juries in regard to matters of fact.' This condition, he. said, “was effected by an Order-in-Council made under the professed authority of a section in th© Judicatifr© Act, which authorities the Governor-in-Council, with the concurrence of any two or more of the Judges, to make, rules regulating the practice and procedure of the Court.” Air. Campbell pointed out that such practice and procedure relates to the machinery of the law by wffiich litigants’ rights are decided and enforced and not to those rights themselves. He proceeded to show how the abolition of the jury in civil cases had left the judges to decide upon questions of fact as well as upon points of law. This cuts away from litigants the right to have questions of fact in any dispute settled by a jury. It is no reflection upon the Supreme Court Bench to say that in regard to questions of fact the judgment of several persons forming a jury is less likely to be led astray than when it is that of an individual, however experienced he may be in assimilating evidence. It may be quite true that the abolition of the jury has speeded up civil law decisions, and that it may have had a beneficial effect in reducing the number of litigants. That is a question that is certainly debatable, but the issue raised in Air. Campbell’s address was that a serious alteration in Court procedure that involved interference with individual rights had been brought about by Order-in-Couneil rather than by an Act of Parliament, which would have run th© gauntlet of public discussion. Unfortunately there is little indication of administration by Order-in-Council, or by regulations not submitted to Parliament before coming into force, being abandoned. Until it is seriously curtailed, however, the establishment of really democratic government is still only an ideal. /