EMPIRE APPEAL COURT.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVI, Issue 9, 30 August 1911, Page 8

EMPIRE APPEAL COURT.

IMPORTANT REFORMS PROPOSED.

LONDON, July 21. During the sitings of the Imperial Conference, it became known that Mr. Asquith and the Lord Chancellor were quite agreeable to the introduction of certain changes in the constitution and procedure of both the House of Lords {in its judicial capacity) and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The precise nature of these changes was not, however, given either in the official precis issued during the currency of the Conference, or in the full official report recently issued. It was explained in the latter document that a memorandum on the subject would be embodied in a further Blue Book. This was issued this week.

It may be remembered that a motion was submitted to the Conference by the Prime Minister of Australia in favour of the creation of one final Court of Appeal for the whole Empire. The precise terms of Mr. Fisher’s motion were:

“That it is desirable that the judicial functions in regard to the Dominions now exercised by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council should be vested

in an Imperial Appeal Court, which should also be the final Court of Appeal for Great Britain and Ireland.” After speeches by Mr. Asquith, Lord Loreburn, and Lord Haldane, In which certain suggestions concerning both the House of Lords and the Privy Council were outlined, Mr. Fisher withdrew the motion quoted above, and substituted another in the following terms: "Having heard the views of the Lord Chancellor and Lord Haldane, the Conference recommends that the proposals of the Government of the United Kingdom be embodied in a communication, to be sent to the Dominions at an earlv date.” 7 That motion was carried, and the Memorandum published is issued in accordance with the understanding arrived, at. SUMMARY OF NEW PROPOSALS. The memorandum gives a detailed history of the proposals made and the reforms effected in the constitution of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council from 1895 to 1908. To this is appended the following “summary of proposals of His Majesty’s Government agreed to by the Conference” and officially described as a proposition which “appears to express the result of the discussion at the Imperial Conference on Monday, the 12th. June”: 1. At present the House of Lords is the Supreme Court of Appeal for the United Kingdom, and the King in Council (in effect the Judicial Committee) is the Supreme Court of Appeal for the rest of the Empire. 2. It is proposed to take a first step towards combining these Courts into a Supreme Court of Appeal for the Empire, and towards strengthening them by adding to the number of judges composing them. 3. The scheme is that the Home Government should add two selected judges to the Lords of Appeal. There would then be six Law Lords devoting their whole time to sitting in the two Courts. 4. In addition, the Lord Chancellor would, as now, preside whenever he is present, and all who are now qualified to sit in either the House of Lords or the Judicial Committee would be able to sit as now. 5. In this way the appeals of the United Kingdom and of the rest of the Empire respectively would be heard by the same judges who hear them now, with the addition of two Law Lords to both courts, but the two courts would both be branches of the Imperial Court of Appeal. 6. Except where it is necessary that the House of Lords and the Judicial Committee shall sit simultaneously, it is contemplated that the Court shall sit in full strength first at the one and then at the other. 7. It will be necessary that the conditions and method of appeal from different parts of the Empire shall be suited to the local requirements, and it is not practicable to attain uniformity in these respects, at all events at first. But as the judges will be almost entirely the same for all kinds of appeals, it seems probable that a greater degree of uniformity may be reached, and possibly in time all differences may be effaced. 8. It is further proposed that, in accordance with the wishes expressed by the Dominion representatives, the practice of the Judicial Committee shall ba modified so that in Dominion cases any dissentient judge may be free to give his reasons if His Majesty’s consent is given to this change.