LAWYER’S PLEA FOR SPEEDIER PROCEDURE

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28261, 26 April 1957, Page 14

LAWYER’S PLEA FOR SPEEDIER PROCEDURE

Causes of delay and dissatisfaction in the procedure of the Supreme Court were examined by Mr R. Hardie Boys in a paper presented to the Dominion Legal Conference on Wednesday. A separate Court of Appeal, the establishment of which would soon become an established fact, would not accomplish all that was needed to promote speedier and more efficient justice in the disposal of cases, he said. Substantial obstacles which had to be removed were outlined by Mr Boys as follows: (1) the archaic system of quarter sessions in centres where the work of the Supreme Court continued throughout the year; (2) the preference now enjoyed by certain classes of litigant over all others; (3) the way in which the work throughout the country was allotted to judges without regard, in the main, to their special skills and experience; (4) the tempo of hearing of witness actions. One of the majcr reasons for tie unanimous endorsement by the last conference of the proposal for the establishment of a permanent court of appeal was the delay encountered in the Supreme Court by judges having to break off their work to attend the Court of Appeal, only to return burdened with reserved judgments, he said. “It is a high compliment to our

judiciary and our judicial system that, while providing an ever-in-creasing volume of work to the Magistrates’ Courts in their greatly enlarged jurisdiction, our citizens flock in their numbers to our superior courts for redress of their wrongs and the assertion of their rights,” said Mr Boys. “That the lists are always full of contentious matters certainly makes the practice of the advocate and of the solicitor both more interesting and more lucrative.

“But this profitably litigious character of our citizenry is being so actively discouraged • by present procedure that there is a real danger of the population being forced into a reasonable state of mind instead of enjoying the luxury of contests in the courts.”

The quarter sessions system now meant that all jury cases, criminal and civil, were heard first and were jammed in together in a flurry of fixtures, one after the other, for three or four weeks, and that for three months a deadline had been drawn for all cases except for the privileged class which did not need to set its case down before the commencement of the sessions. Order of Precedence

That, said Mr Boys, made the order of precedence for justice: first, alleged malefactors; second, sufferers from negligence on the highways or at work; third, the unhappily married (mostly wanting • to give it a second trial); fourth, the dissatisfied litigant from the Magistrates’ Courts; and fifth, a large body of persons in family-protection claims and banco matters of every sort. “Can we not with advantage adjust the system so that cases may be set down for trial immediately the pleadings are concluded and judges summonsed as often as they are needed, monthly if necessary?” he asked. If the grand jury system were ever done away with, the trial by jury of criminal cases would fit exactly into the pattern now proposed for civil cases; and even an alleged criminal would no longer be required to wait up to three months to learn his fate upon gaol delivery. Impression to Litigant The profession developed a complex about long cases. Counsel flushed and hung his head as he explained that an involved commercial case or a patent action would take a week, and joined in happy laughter when the Judge said: “It won’t take a week in front of me.” The litigant had the impression that the Court was too busy, or too impatient, to hear him. '

Five suggestions were made by Mr Boys. They were: quarter sessions restricted to criminal cases to continue while the grand jury system lasted; civil juries called every month in which a week’s jury work was required; all civil proceedings entitled to be set down when pleadings were concluded; cases set down deemed to be ready for trial at once, and therefore not to be set down while interlocutory matters such as discovery and interrogatories were pending; fixtures to be made monthly to dispose of the work set down. “Jack of All Trades”

Each Judge was expected to be a “jack of all trades” and it was true that only an exceptional man by dint of the same sort of time, energy and study as produced the peptic ulcer and the coronary thrombosis, could hope to be “master of all,” said Mr Boys. Were a judge permitted to pursue a degree of specialisation in his judicial work, in that field he might be expected to reserve his judgments far less often than a brother Judge less well equipped by experience and study to come to an immediate conclusion on a matter within that branch of the law.

He saw no real difficulty in the institution of some administrative arrangement whereby the Chief Justice was made aware of the nature of cases requiring hearing throughout the country and, irre-

spective of where a Judge lived, was enabled to exercise a certain amount of selection of the Judge for the case, or of the case for the Judge. Recording Evidence The recording of evidence by typewriter was an anachronism and procedure could be further modernised by one simple form of approach to the court called a fiat, as. an abbreviation of Fiat Justitia, simply stating “Let justice be done” and then setting out the claimant’s prayer for justice against his adversary. “Having laid myself open to the reproach that all that has been said is carping criticism of a good system faithfully administered by an amazingly capable Judiciary and a strong bar, let me make my peace with both,” said Mr Boys in conclusion. “These suggestions seek only to have us examine, as though from the outside, a system with which we have become perhaps over-familiar, to see if its standard of efficiency cannot be streamlined to modern needs, its defects recognised in the light of experience and corrected, where necessary, to achieve the ends of justice without undue delay.”