Wanted, a Public Prosecutor.

Observer, Volume X, Issue 607, 16 August 1890, Page 3

Wanted, a Public Prosecutor.

IS"* Once again I raise my pen to advocate the necessity for appointing a Public Prosecutor in connection with every R.M. Court in the colony. Absconde'rs are allowed to bask in the sunny clime of Fiji, and other embezzlers are permitted to live unpunished in our midst, simply because it does not suit the pockets or wishes of the wronged parties to bring them to justice. Thia is a great public wrong, a distinct incitement to dishonesty, and a discouragement to well-doing. Lodges which have no power to prosecute, and others which lack the will to do so on their own responsibility, would all take proceedings through the medium, of a

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Public Prosecutor, and levanters would not escape, as they do now, with stolen money. # # # I have been told of the secretary of a Lodge in Auckland who has been proved guilty (by a tribunal of his fellows as well as by the Auditor- General) of forgery and extensive embezzlement, yet the Government official apparently does not mean to prosecute him, and his brethren will do nothing beyond stripping him of his property and expelling him in disgrace from the society. The punishment may be quite severe enough, but justice should not be administered in this hole andcorner fashion, and no Lodge should be allowed to supersede the functions of the law courts. The public are entitled at least to know who are the glaringly dishonest members of Bociety. for purposes of selfprotection, even though there should be no desire to inflict vindictive punishment. Therefore I call for the adoption of the system of public prosecutions. It would not be costly, and it would act as a strong deterrent from crime.