THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1129, 17 May 1911, Page 4

THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.

The challenge issued by the Ministerial journal to Mr.. James Allen, calling on him "to play the man'' and tell the country what he means by stating that the Government had interfered with the Courts of Justice, has met- with a prompt response. The member for Bruce, in the. course of his speech at Auckland on Monday evening, referred to the matter, and performed what was no doubt to him, as to others who have discussed the question, an unpleasant public duty with a courage and directness that

cannot fail to win for him a certain amount of admiration as well as widespread approval. Criticism relating to our Courts of Justice is fortunately a rare thing. Few public men possessed of a proper sense of their responsibilities venture on it save under exceptional circumstances, i'hc tendency is, in fact, rather to shirk such criticism oven where ib is called for; and the public interest, which is so deeply concerned with the pure administration of justice, is liable to suffer through this negk'oi. That the circumstances called for outspokenness in the case under review no one can doubt. We have ourselves discussed the principles involved, and it has been debated in Parliament, but . despite the 'unanswerable arguments put forward Parliament allirmcd, by SO votes to 23, that the Government was justified in violating the constitutional principle which lays down that no Judge shall roccivo or expect to receive any emolument beyond that authorised by status as his fixed honorarium. Our readers are familiar with r,ho circumstances which gave rise to the discussion of the question, and we need not repeat here particulars of the payments made by the Government, to the Chief Justice in conned ion w ; th the work of consolidating the statutes of the colony and for his services on the Native Lands.Commission —payments running into several thousand poinds, which were supplementary of J.is honorarium of £2000 per annum ;is Chief Justice.

It was, as w.j In re contended, a v«ry wrong and a very unwise tiring to make these extra and unusual payments to a Judge. It decs not matter in the least whether the Judge who received them was likely or unlikely^to be affected in the performance of his judicial functions by the favours thus conferred on him. Whatever possibility there might bo of unconscious or conscious bias on his part as the result of the extra emolument paid him is of less moment than the almcst absolute certainty that, his actions at some future time would give rise to the suspicion in the minds of some that ho had been so influenced. Have wc not arrived very neii to that position to-day 1 In discussing the matter in Parliament the late Mr. F. Bai7jic maclc this point: "It was often said to be more important that the administration of justice should appear' pure than that it should be pure; and without going so far as that he would say that it was of the highest importance that no action should be undertaken either by the Government or by the Bench either individually or collectively which should give the outside world the slightest impressioa that any action of theirs could bo dictated by other than tin strictest motives of duty." The _ action of the Government in making the payments and .of the Chief Justice in ac:epting them was almost certai 1 to have exactly the opposite effect on the public mind to that contended for by Mr. B.aujie as desirable and necessary. We do not wish to touch on the very unfortunate inaccuracies of the Chief Justice in his quite unnecessary comment on the Hine charges. We dealt with them attho time, and we arc concerned nov; with the general principle rather than with details. Wo have not the least doubt that Mr. Allen will be subjected to bitter attack for daring to discuss the actions of the Chief Justice. Wo ourselves should have preferred that the Chief Justice's name should bo kept out of the matter altogether, but unfortunately Sir Robert Stout himself has made that impossible. The question, however, is too important to be obscur-xl on pcrspnal'grounds. Parliament, at the instance of Sir JosEm Ward, has affirmed the dangerous principle that our Judges may receive favours at the hands of the Government of the day; and it has affirmed that principle under circumstances which it lias been necessary to disclose in some detail in order to bring home to the public a proper appreciation of the menacing possibilities involved. It is an unpleasant, a thankless, task, yet if Mr. Allen and those with him succeed by their outspoken protests in preventing any possibility of a repetition of such payments to ihosc who administer justice in our law Courts, they will have performed a service to the community too great to properly estimate. The late Mr. Baujie, who was a lawyer of . high repute, and a supporter of the Government, when discussing these payments in Parliament in 1900, gave utterance to the following opinions:

I am one. of those who believe, that it is in accordance with the Act of Settlement and in accordance with the ideals of our community that the salary of a Judge should bo fixed and unalterable, and a Judge should be, like Caesar's wife, above suspicion.. It is not because we know the Chief Justice cannot be tampered with that he should not bo given this work. It is because he is Judge of the Court and because his salary should he ascertained on his appointment, and that it should not be possiblo for the Government to provide means by which he should bo able to earn further sums from tho Government. It is because it is possible, especially in a democracy, for any popular wave manifesting itself through the Cabinet, to impose upon weaker Judges political work, the result of which may be gu-assed at or known beforehand by reason of tho known leanings of the Judges. And under no circumstances whatever should thero bo a possibility of a Judge of (he Supremo Court profiting or suffering either from the hostility or friendship, favour or ingratitude, praise or contumely, of Governments, Parliaments, or the community generally with respect to any of his work. Mr. BauJle's warning fell on deaf cars in Parliament. "We do not think it will pass unheeded by tic people of New Zealav-d.