LABOUR REQUEST

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 41, 17 April 1942, Page 5

LABOUR REQUEST

"BLOW AT JUDICIARY"

SUGGESTED ARBITRATION COURT FINALITY

Comment on the opinions said by the "Standard" to have been expressed at the recent Federation of Labour Conference, "on the urgent need for legislation to be brought down by the Government maliing decisions of the Arbitration Court final and conclusive and not subject to appeal to other Courts," was made in Wellington by a legal man of wide experience in industrial matters, who said that such a reform would be a blow struck at the Judiciary. At present, he said, the , Magistrate's Court, the Supreme Court, and, if the Court of Appeal, had jurisdiction to decide' .civil' claims by workers for wages and other payments alleged to be due to them under awards of contract. That jurisdiction of the civil Courts had existed since the founding of the> colony. There was no appeal from a decision of the Court of Arbitration, therefore the only way employers had of testing the validity and correctness of certain decisions of tho Court of Arbitration Avas to defend civil claims for Avages' and other payments made by Avorkers in the civil Courts. In the past civil Courts, including the Court of Appeal, has held that some judgments of the Court of Arbitration Avere erroneous in la\v. That right of employers to have certain matters referred for decision to the ci\ r il Courts Avas the only protection they had against erroneous decisions of the Court of Arbitration and Avas a right they considered Avas an inherent part of British justice and one that should be jealously preserved. If the alteration in the law asked for Avas made it Avould oust the present jurisdiction of the Magistrate's and Supreme Courts and would be a blow struck at the Judiciary of the country.