LAND COURT BENCH

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30975, 3 February 1966, Page 5

LAND COURT BENCH

That no more judges be appointed to the Maori Land Court was a major recommendation in the report of the committee that inquired into laws affecting Maori land and powers of the Maori Land Court released yesterday by the Minister of Maori Affairs (Mr Hanan). The Land Court side of Maori life had faded while departmental work on housing welfare, trust, and development had assumed greater importance, said the report. The functions of the Land Court during the early part of its 100 years of existence were examined at length, and it was shown that much work for which it was established had long since been completed. Much of the work had in recent years passed either to other courts or to the district officer (who was also the representative of the Maori Trustee) and his staff. Many changes were proposed which would transfer work from the judges to district officers, said the report. For instance, the death of a Maori no longer need be followed by a case before the Maori Land Court. The committee recommended that uncontested letters of administration and probates, for Maori land, should be made by registrars and deputy-registrars of the Maori Land Court on written applications, and not at a Maori Land Court sitting. It was estimated that this work alone had taken about 40 per cent of the judge’s time.

Another recommendation to reduce work of judges was that the present Appellate Court (on which judges of the Court, other than the one who gave a decision, sat on an appeal) should be abolished. An Appellate Committee was recommended instead. It would consist of a chairman, the senior land utilisation officer, and a Maori. District Officers

The importance of the district officers had grown with the years, said the report. In

many land dealings important work was in fact carried out by district officers, and not by judges. Special districts should be established, said the report, in which registrars (district officers) and deputy-registrars should be commissioners of the Land Court, who would exercise all the powers previously held by judges.

The South Island should be established at once as such a district, said the report, and the appointment of the registrar at Christchurch as a commissioner would result in the Maori land there moving more rapidly to full use. At present the South Island was served by a judge at Palmerston North.