Poor Persons Aided.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20285, 20 April 1934, Page 6

Poor Persons Aided .

Crown to Pay for Legal Advice. Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, April 20. JN FUTURE under certain stipulated conditions the Crown will pay the expenses of the defence of poor persons who are committed for trial for indictable offences. The Poor Prisoners Defence Act has now been brought into operation and the old law on this subject repealed. Regulations were gazetted last evening prescribing the form of legal aid certificates and defence certificates granted under the Act, the manner in which counsel are to be assigned in pursuance of such certificates and the fees payable to counsel so assigned and the expenses payable to witnesses for the defence. Commenting on the new regulations, the Minister of Justice (the Hon J. G. Cobbe) said that previous statutory provisions for legal aid to accused persons contained in the Justices of the Peace Act were based upon an Imperial Act of 1903. Those provisions, which had now been repealed, made the disclosure of the defence a condition precedent to the granting of legal aid. “ Such a condition,” said the Minister, “is contrary to the principles of British justice, it being the first axiom of English criminal law that a prosecution must prove its case before calling upon accused to disclose his defence. The English Act of 1903 was. superseded by the Poor Prisoners Defence Act, 1930 (imperial). The principal reason for the introduction of that measure, as reference to the discussion on the Bill in the House of Commons shows, was the elimination of the objectionable feature I have referred to. The New Zealand Act of last session was designed to bring our legislation into line with the English Act of 1930, and the two statutes are now practically identical. “ Under the repealed legislation, legal rid was confined to indictable cases heard in the Supreme Court. Provision has been made in the new Act for legal assistance in respect of criminal charges heard summarily and of the preliminary hearing of indictable offences before Justices where, owing to the gravity of the charge, or to exceptional circumstances, it was desirable that ’ legal aid should be provided for accused.”