PURITY OF JUSTICE.

Thames Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 20094, 24 August 1937, Page 3

PURITY OF JUSTICE.

PROTECTION FOR MAGISTRATES Judge Gives Views. IMPORTANCE OF POSITION. MUST BE INDEPENDENT. [By Telegraph.—Press Association] AUCKLAND, Aug. 24. Support of the contention by Mr. J. H. Luxford, S.M., that protection should be given to magistrates, was expressed by Mr. J'ustice Ostler when interviewed in the Supreme Court this morning. “A most important function of the State is the impartial administration of justice,” said his Honour. “Human experience has shown that the safest and best way of insuring a pure administration of justice is the absolute independence of those engaged in its administration. After the unfortunate experience of subservient judges during tho reign of the Stuarts in England, that independence was finally provided so far as the judges were concerned in the Act of Settlement of 1701. So important was the principle considered that it has been ever since enshrined in every democratic constitution based on the English model. It is to be found in the constitution of the United States of of all the Australian colonies and of New Zealand. In addition to the constitutional position of judges making them independent of the executive, the English law has for a Jong time provided that judges shall be absolutely immune from civil liability from anything they say or do in the execution of their duty.

“As was pointed out by Mr. Luxford, this rule was devised not for the protection of the judges, but for the benefit of the public. The surest way of providing for the purity and independence of the administration of justice is to provide that those engaged in its administration should be put in the position of independence and freedom from fear of consequences, then if men of high character are chosen that is the best system human thought can devise.

“There is no reason in my mind why the magistrates should not be put in the same position with judges in being both independent of the executive and immune from the consequences of their acts done without malice and in the execution of their duty.”