MOTHER’S DENIAL OF GIFT

Taranaki Daily News, 2 September 1933, Page 9

MOTHER’S DENIAL OF GIFT

POINT IN THE NATIVE COURT ORDER WITHOUT JURISDICTION. DISCOVERY AFTER SON'S DEATH. PARLIAMENT ALLOWS REOPENING. A point of considerable importance in its effect on a succession to Maori property was left for settlement with Chief Judge N. R. Jones in the Native Land Court at New Plymouth yesterday. He has been asked to decide, in his discretion, whether a gift of land should be varied or quashed because, among other reasons, it was ratified by the court when the court actually did not have the necessary power. The circumstances of the case are unusual. Mere Renata, the mother of Hone Kepa and Weki Piri Kepa, had an interest in the Katere No., 1 block on the Mangaone Hill, opposite the Waiwakaiho showgrounds. In August, 1915, Judge Jack, in the Native Land Court made a partition order confirming an alleged gift of half this land (20 acres) to Hone. Apparently it had been the custom of the court to make such orders, though it was not so empowered by legislation. In October, 1915, however, an Act was passed giving the court authority to confirm freehold gifts of this kind, but without making it operative retrospectively. When Honi Kepa died in 1926 his family applied for succession and it was then that Mere Renata found that Hone liad a half-interest in her Katere land. She denied knowledge of the gift, and it. was suggested the order of the court must have been made through some misunderstanding. It was not possible, however, to upset the partition order because it had then been in force for more than 10 years; for that reason Mere Renata did not succeed in proceedings taken by her to have the gift set aside. Her next step was to petition Parliament to give the court power to deal with her application, and. the result was that in 1928 the Legislature authorised the Chief Judge to investigate the matter. But before he could do so Mere Renata died in 1930, leaving a will in favour of her surviving son, Weki Piri Kepa. Weki has now decided to have the matter reopened under the authority given by Parliament m 1928, the normal outcome of which had been interrupted by his mother’s death. In asking the Chief Judge to annul the gift yesterday he relied on the grounds that the partition order of 1915 was made by the court when it had no jurisdiction to do so, and that Hone Kepa’s gift of the land was made and confirmed without the knowledge or consent of his mother. If the Chief Judge decides against the . partition order the land in question will revert to the estate of Mere Renata and, in the terms of the will, will become-the property of Weki Kepa. Honi Kepa s children will thus be dispossessed. At the hearing Mr. A. R. Standish represented Weki Kepa, as successor to Renata by her will; while Mr. C. White appeared for the'’ successors of Hone Kepa.