FORBIDDING OF PUBLICATION

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24904, 18 June 1946, Page 4

FORBIDDING OF PUBLICATION

PROCEEDINGS OF LAND SALES COMMITTEE SOLICITOR SEEKS ORDER OF RESCISSION < A notice of motion for an order reviewing and rescinding an order of the Canterbury Urban Land Sales Committee forbidding publication of part of the proceedings in an application has been filed by Mr K. M. Gresson. The application concerned was that of W. F. .and G. Nitschke to sell a house in Rugby street to M. R. Torrance for £2550. The application was granted, provided that the price was reduced to £2385. The Crown valuation was £2030.

Mr Gresson, solicitors for the vendors, in a letter to the Registrar of the Land Bales Court, says he learned from a newspaper report that an order was made forbidding the publication of the argument he addressed to the committee. ■ The letter continues: “On the assumption that such a statement is true, I am of opinion that no such order was warranted; moreover. that it should have been made without hearing me. and after thb sitting had concluded and I had left, is, to say the least of it, extraordinary Furthermore, no intimation of the order’s having been made has been communicated to me.

“The matter has two aspects, one that the order so made constitutes an affront to me personally as having the possible implication that the argument put forward by me was improper or irrelevant, and another and much more important aspect, one of public concern, that the newspapers were forbidden to publish a portion of the proceedings in a case which is one of a class of very general interest and importance. and this for no apparently •valid reason.

“I apply therefore to be heard by the Land Sales Committee concerned, at its next public sitting, or at any rate at the earliest practicable moment, on my application: (a) that the committee review and rescind the order made regarding n on-publication of argument; (b) that the exact terms be expressed in writing to be embodied m the order to be filed so that an appeal may be prosecuted.”