The Timaru Herald. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1902.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 11689, 24 February 1902, Page 2

The Timaru Herald. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1902.

A telegram, which we published on Saturday,' gave an outline of two cases which had been heard in the' Magistrate's Court at Dunedin. The charges against the defendant were for having made bets at totalisator odds in connection with the ; race for the Welcome Stakes and for the New Zealand Cup." We shall not trouble our readers with the particulars of the transactions, what occurred" in the Court at the hearing of the charge is of considerable interest to the public. The Stipendiary Magistrate was on the bench, but some Justices of the Peace sat- with him. The first case, that relating to the Welcome Stakes, was an adjourned ' '

one. The evidence had been heard, and judgment reserved until the decision of Mr Justice Williams, on an appeal on a

point' of law in & similar case should be given. The other day His Honour upheld : the Magistrate's decision in that case, and ; on Friday the Magistrate had to give judgment on the Welcome Stakes case, "which was on all fours with the appeal case. It is quite evident that the Justices of I(i Peace ought l ' not to have in t£ifered, although technically they may have had a right to occupy seats on the bench. . It seems, however, that they did interfere, and after deliberating with them the Magistrate said: —"The two Justices are in favour of the case being dismissed. It must therefore be 'dismissed. If the .Stipendiary Magistrate had been sitting alone he would, as a matter of course, have convicted the defendant, in accordance with the decision of Mr Justice Williams in the precisely similar appeal case. Here, therefore, we have two Justices overriding not only the opinion of the StipendiaryMagistrate before whom the evidence had been taken, but the judgment of the Supreme Court on the point at issue. The New Zealand Cup case was next called on, and the Crown Prosecutor in stating it said: —"He had to confess that until that day he cherished the opinion that such an authority as Mr Justice Williams was not likely to be set aside by two Justices. He again relied upon the Judge's judgment for a decision in this case, and there, he apprehended, his 'duty ended. It did not often fall to the lot of counsel representing the Crown to find a decision of a Supreme Court Judge reversed by Justices. He was inclined to look for a reason elsewhere than to the intelligence of the Justices." In this case also the Stipendiary Magistrate was evidently in favour of a conviction for the same reasons that had influenced him in the previous case, but he was again overridden by the Justices who were sitting with him, and the information was dismissed. Then came a few remarks from the Crown Prosecutor, who announced that he did not intend to proceed any further, alluding to some other cases of a similar kind still remaining on the list. The Stipendiary Magistrate added: —"I don't intend to sit," also in allusion to the cases yet to be tried. Eventually those cases were adjourned, but we understand from the report of the proceedings in the " Otago Daily Times " that another Magistrate and another prosecutor will be found. In our opinion the Stipendiary Magistrate and the Crown Prosecutor, were both wrong in declining to have anything to do with the remaining cases in consequence of the perversity of the Justices of the Peace. Both Magistrate and Crown Prosecutor should have gone on with the business, and if the Justices of the Peace had persisted in ignoring the judgment of Mr Justice Williams, and. in overriding the Stipendiary Magistrate, the facts should have been brought fully under the notice of the Minister of Justice, who, under such circumstances, would, if he has any backbone and a proper sense of right and wrong, remove the offending Justices of the Peace from the Ccmmission. It is not often that the unpaid Magistracy in New Zealand play such pranks, but when cases of the sort occur, and the perversity is persisted in, there is only one proper j course to pursue, and that is- to get rid of such unreasonable administrators of justice. We notice that the " Otago I Daily Times" of Saturday deals with the subject in an article headed "A Miscarriage of Justice." We make the following quotations:—"Momentous public interests are so vitally at stake in matters connected with the administration of jus--1 tice that it will be matter for profound surprise if the proceedings at the City Police Court yesterday are allowed to jiass without the strongest possible remonstrance." Further on, our taxes the sitting Justices with "flagrant wrong-doing" : —" We use the word wrongdoers ia connection with the Justices who sat with the Stipendiary Magistrate yesterday because we believe that in its widest sense it is strictly applicable. That the persons referred to by their action yes : terday have done a grievous wrong to their fellow-citizens we have no hesitation in affirming. They have brought the administration of justice in Dunedin into the most utter contempt. They deliberately set up their crude ar.d imperfect knowledge of the law against the ripe judgment of one of the soundest and most experienced Magistrates in the colony ; and—pitiable spectacle—they so far forgot themselves as to ignore the opinion of Mr Justice Williams on an important piont in a case they had tried and which had been referred'to His Honour before the lower Court gave its decision." The " Times" thinks that the Minister should interfere:—"lt is clear that if the Minister of Justice has any wish to aid the Crown Prosecutor and the police in the performance of their duty, and if the Magistrates of the colony are to be accorded that support which they have a right to look for from the head of the Justice Department, Mr Carew should be called upon for a report setting forth the full circumstances under which these, tote-betting cases have been tried. Meantime the Crown Prosecutor is placed in a most, perplexing position. On the one hand it would be futile for him to bring to trial the other cases in which informations have been laid, at ilie hearing of which there is the danger that a similar travesty of justice would take place; while on the other, it is equally difficult for him to arrive at the conclusion to drop the whole of the cases." Our previous remarks show that we do not think that either the Stipendiary Magistrate or the Crown Prosecutor is in a difficulty. They should do their duty, aad if there is a further fiasco ic will strengthen the case against the Justices of the Peace, and render the task of the Minister an easjone. \