Right of appeal to Privy Council may be abolished

Press, 30 June 1983, Page 8

Right of appeal to Privy Council may be abolished

The right of appeal to the Privy Council’s judicial committee by New Zealanders might eventually be abolished, said the Prime Minister, Mr Muldoon, in Christchurch yesterday. Addressing the Canterbury District Law Society, Mr Muldoon said that he was aware of a number of cases where a lack of knowledge about the social and historical situation in New Zealand had produced, or could have produced, faulty decisions by the Londonbased committee.

In one case, the Privy Council might have given a decision that could have destroyed New Zealand’s system of land titles had there not been an Australian on the committee. “There is no doubt in some of the instances that have been brought to my notice that we ran a very real risk,” Mr Muldoon said.

However, he emphasised that the change would not be made quickly.

“As with most constitutional issues, progress, I believe, is best made slowly,” he said.

Mr Muldoon said that he was in close agreement with the recommendations of the Royal Committee on the Courts, headed by Sir David Beattie, which reported in 1978. The commission recommended that the right of appeal to the Privy Council should not be abolished lightly. The sole criterion had to be that abolition would benefit the New Zealand judicial system. The right of appeal to the

Privy Council should not be removed until a bigger Court of Appeal, with at least five judges and the Chief Justice, was working with the confidence of the general public and the legal profession. “Bearing in mind that the time may come when appeals to the Judicial Committee cease, any intervening period should be used to structure our court system to enable the best Possible appellate system to e implemented,” he said.

Mr Muldoon, who toured Christchurch courts before his address, had been invited by the Law Society to speak about the right of appeal to the Privy Council. This followed up a recent statement by the Minister of Justice, Mr McLay, favouring a system with two appeal courts in New Zealand. After his lunch-time address, Mr Muldoon spoke to a class of international law students at the University of Canterbury. He spoke in detail about the formation of the International Monetary Fund and his proposals for change in the world monetary system at a Bretton Woods-type conference. Replying to questions, he said his proposals would have no direct application to New Zealand since it was not “in bad enough shape.” “We have no direct interest, but we have a very, very real interest in making sure not only that the system does not collapse but that it gets better,” Mr Muldoon said. New Zealand tended to suffer more than other countries if the world econ-

omy was slack. “There is no country that is more dependent on a sound and vigorous world economy than New Zealand, if only because of the relationship between external trade and our economy,” he said.

New Zealand was not in difficulty with its external debt, but at least 40 countries throughout the world were. Under the present system, their debt burden had built up and there was no way to reverse the trend.

Some of the countries might have created their own problem with poor economic management, Mr Muldoon said.

“But that is not going to solve it. If we get to the point where we have a crash and the whole system goes down the tube, we will go with it,” he said.

The issue had considerable importance in many other ways. For many countries, economic difficulty led to political difficulty and that could lead, in turn, to strategic difficulty. Mr Muldoon said his package of proposals for a restructuring of the world monetary system had gained total support from Third World countries. It was supported by middleincome countries and by the oil-producing nations. Many small Western European countries would support it and so would Canada and Japan. Britain was “coming round” to it.

The main opposition came from West Germany and the United States, but “we are making progress,” Mr Muldoon said.