“FREE JUDICIARY.”

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20278, 12 April 1934, Page 9

“FREE JUDICIARY.”

Freedom From Political Influence. RETIRING JUDGE'S VIEWS. Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, April 12. A farewell by the Bar was extended to his Honor, Mr Justice MacGregar in the Supreme Court to-day. Tributes were paid to his Honor by Mr Tread- < well, president of the New Zealand Law Society, and Air T. C. A. Hislcp, president of the Wellington District Law Society. In the course of his reply, Mr Justice MacGregor said he had endeavoured to deal out even-handed justice. He referred to the judicial system and what it aimed to accomplish, and expressed the hope that justice would continue to be done in New Zealand, in the future as in the past. The onlj r danger he could foresee, he said, was the possibly increasing influence of politics on members of the Bench and Bar. If ideal justice was to be attained, that possible danger must be avoided at all costs. “ I look to you gentlemen of the Bar to see to it that the judiciary, at all events, shall ever be and remain absolutely free and independent. That freedom and that independence form a great bulwark of justice, in troublous times protects and preserves numbers of peoole against aggression, whether in the shape of a bureaucracy or otherwise.