THE NATIVE LAND LAWS.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11848, 22 July 1893, Page 3

THE NATIVE LAND LAWS.

• The following extracts from a judgment, lately given by Judge Barton, in the Gisborne Validation Court, are well •worth le printing for the sake of the light they throw upon the present system of dealing with the Native Lands: — The validation and partition with Mr Tiffen in this case are at last completed, after an investigation lasting three months. Under 1 a proper Act three weeks should have more than sufficed, and the fact that the enquiry has occupied so much time will doubtless be used by the opponents of legitimate validation. From my knowledge of business in this district, I have litcle hesitation in saying that under a . proper statute drawn by a practical Deri son acquainted with the class of work to Vbe done, the whole validation required on the East Coast could be completed in - little over three years. In making that - statement I am presuming that the Act would be confined to validation alone, and that the Judge wculd be occupied in validation only, leaving the subsequent partitioning to the Native Land Court, .whose proper work it is. The Judge of the Validating Court ought not to be interrupted by being called away to ordinary Native Land Court work, a 9 was my own case so frequently during the Poututu enquiry. That enquiry is reputed to have lasted nearly four yews, and to be Btill unfinished. But the truth is that the validation work of all the Poututu case has long since been completed, the whole time occupied at difEerent intervals in contests in Court under the Poututu Jurisdiction Act being in all only nineteen days. During all the remainder of the four yearß I was occupied in other business and elsewhere, i.c, in the extreme North, in the King country, in Wairalapa, in Tolago, in Wairoa, and in other places. The rights of the Poututu litigants are even now hung np by applications for rehearing made a year ago k and still unheard. r~ Mr object all along in these judgments, k . and in the Poututu judgments, has been » to '"reveal tho whole thing to daylight," and strip from Native land proceedings the veil of mystery in which unscrupulous persons have shrouded them for their own purposes. Many members of Parliament, unable to pierce that veil, look so suspiciously on all Native Bills, and arosoconvinced that the Native Land Court is a mere tool for improper uses, that they refuse their confidence to every measure introduced, lest some innocent-looking clause should conceal sinister provisions ' perpetuating instead of preventing the continuance of past evils. It is with regret I admit the justice of their fears aud the truth of the words of the At-torney-General when he said that tho condition of the Native land .lode is dis graceful— that there is no finality— that no one, however clever he may bo, can understand it, and that our courts are scenes of gross fraud, where justice is done to neither European or Maori. My lone judgments in this and the Poututu enquiiy were lahoured by me solely for x the purpose of affordiDg practical illustration to Parliament of these very things Had I not had that object in view a few ines would have sufficiently expressed the decisions of the Court. When the Attorney-General was inforing the Conneil that " the condition of our Native land legislation was simply disgraceful," he was net aware that the Bill he held in his hand and was pressing on the Council contained provisions quite as "disgraceful" as any in preceding legislation. One of these clauses authorizes tLe Validation Court to partitioT the block "forthwith" without any require, ment to give notice to the absent nonselling Natives, who, not being interested in the transactions before the Court, cannot be expected to come there, at all events without a special summons to do so. But this is not all, incredible as it may seem.the Court iB not only authorized to cut up and distribute the block " forthwith," without notice to the absent owners.but it is even empowered toabolish a subdivision already made by a former Court and substitute itß own — thus depriving people of the holdings given to them by Court orders which by statute were mada " final and conclusive " — k holdings they may have built upon, or r"may even have sold to other persons who accented these "final and conclusive" Court orders as being indefeasible titles. Such a provision is contrary to natural justice, and is thoroughly illustrative of the Attorney-General's words " There is no finality." .^■S*-; 1 "' bad as this section it it pales before tnS'.iV'S'i section, which openly treats the Native Land Court Judges as mere puppets. It provides that after a Validating Judge has forwarded his certificate to tie Chief Judge to be laid before Parliament, together with the reasons on which it is based, and the evidence justifying the giving of the certificate to tha successful suitor, the Chief Judge may refer back that certificate " for further enquiry, or for further consideration with such directions as to the taking of cvi dence or otherwise as he may consider necessary." That is to say, the Chief Judge may " dirpct " the ;ertifying Judge to sign another and differsnt certificate giving the land to a different person. The section is capable of no other reasonable construction than this. The Chief Judge is empowered to " direct " the certifying Jadge to alter his certificate. Only two alterations are possible, one, to alter the land given, and the other, Jto alter the person to whom it is • given. Now if the statute had provided an appeal to some higher Court, authorizing that Court to re-hear the case, and substitute its responsibility and its certificate for those of the Judge appealed from, such a provision would have teen legitimate ; hut under this «ct there is no Buch appeal. Instead of such open appeal, this proceeding is provided by which tho certifying Judge may be compelled in secret to eat his own words and Mgn a certificate not his own, to be presented to Parliament as bis own and ostensibly on his responsibility.. Thehand wouldbethe handoE Ksau, thought the voice would be Jacobs voice, and the part of Parliament would be that of the aged and blind Isaac. Can a Court ot justice be more deeply degraded than to be required by Btatute to lend itself to such a fraud as this ? Or can any of the legislation referred to by the Attoiuey-General better fit his descriptive epithet—" Disgraceful." No one who has not made the endeavour can appreciate how difficnlt it is for a — Native Land Court Judge without status, without even the protection which publicity of the Court proceedings gives to other Judges — to resist the influences brought to bear upon him. He ia harassed with applications to the Supreme Court ; prohibitions, mandamuses, tven actions are showered upon him by those against • "iese interests he has given judgement, Pd while his work is thereby stopped or tielayed, he is accuEed m Parliament and elsewhere (as happened to myself regarding Poututu) of being guilty of these very delays. My Court orders in that litigation were obstructed even in the other Government depari ments, and in one instance obedience to an order of my Court had to be enforced by a protracted and costly proceeding in the Supreme Court. A Judge subjected to such obstacles and to such influences, not to mention others not alluded to here, must at least in sheer despair let things slide ratli6r than court his own destruction by futile resistance to the frai ds and wrongs of .^powerful persons. *r The Supreme Court ]udgos who deal ■with interests far interior in value to those dealt with in the Native Land Court are by special statue absolutely orotectedag ainst attack from any quarter

1 The judges of the Native L^nd Cou>i have no protection whate\ rr, and it' anj swindling traneaction is In id l-'iro ant public indignation aomaml. v vc ,im, thi very rascal who is deeampi. :, with hii booty, raises the cry of " stoji thief! against the Judge bo that attention maj be diverted from himself.