Legal Conference

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28259, 23 April 1957, Page 10

Legal Conference

Christchurch is host this week to a notable assembly in the triennial New Zealand legal conference, the third to be held in this city. It was in Christchurch, incidentally, "that the first conference was held in 1928, on the initiative of Mr W. J. Hunter, later a judge of the Arbitration Court. The attendance at these conferences, both in numbers and in the eminence of many visitors, is evidence of

the advantages the profession may obtain from meeting as a learned society. The people of New Zealand derive advantages no less. The law is not a static code, and all its practitioners (including those who have become judges and magistrates) help its growth in two ways. First, in their appearances in the Courts, solicitors, barristers, and the Bench contribute to the application and development of both common law and statute law, showing what they mean, and sometimes what they should mean. Second, the profession, through its law societies, gives important services in suggesting how the law and its administration could be improved and in examining draft legislation to see whether it seems to accord with Samuel Johnson’s definition: “ Law is “ the last result of human “ wisdom acting upon human “ experience for the benefit of ♦“the public”. In an imperfect world, this is perhaps a definition of perfection, but the process of law-making is strengthened by the advice legislators get from those who have to apply the law. Ordinarily the first lawmaking function, in which lawyers to their best of their

ability and in accordance with the ethics of the profession represent individual clients, is one of which most is heard. This week, the other aspect will have greater prominence. Among those who will address the conference is the head of the Bar, the Attorney-General (Mr Marshall). His speech has special interest, because the profession is waiting to learn whether the Government will accede (as has been reported in Wellington) to repeated requests for the establishment of a separate Court of Appeal. This would be the biggest advance in securing justice made in New Zealand for many years, and one for which the law societies could take some credit. The conference is an important event for. lawyers. It is important for the public, too, because it is to this profession that they must chiefly look for the protection of their rights and the defence of their liberties. It is an honourable calling to bear this responsibility. In the words of the elder Pitt: “Where law ends, “ tyranny begins ”,