DEFAULTERS AND DESERTERS
TRIAL BY CIVIL COURTS LABOUR'S REQUEST FOR GENERAL AMNESTY The Minister of Defence (Sir Heaton Rhodes) last night moved the second reading of the Military Service Amendment Bill, which piovides that military deserters and defaulters may be tried in the civil Courts instead of by courtmartial. The Minister said that the Returned Soldiers' Association had objected to tho Bill, but the fear of the association was, apparently, that the Government might repeal tho measure depriving military deserters and defaulters of their civil rights. Ho had no sympathy with offenders of tho kind referred to, and lis would be no party to legislation proposing to restore their civil rights'to them. The Leader of tho Opposition (Hon. 1\ M. Wilford) regarded the Bill as an admission of the authorities that courtmartial procedure had broken down. He suggested that the alleged breakdown mii due to the fact that the officers composing courts-martial were nob legal experts, however gallantly they might have fought. He was induced by the considerations stated to support the Bill. Mr. H. E. Holland (Buller) made a plea on behalf of tho conscientious objector. Ho admitted that there were probably not more than two or three such men'in the prisons at present, but there wore numbers liablo to - imprisonment. He thought that the Government should proclaim an amnesty extending _ to all military offenders but those convicted of "criminal" offences in the ordinary sense of the word. He approved of the main pioposal put forward in the Bill. The Minister of Justice.(Mr..Lee), replying to a question put by Mr. Wilford, said that the Bill proposed to repeal section 17 of the principal Act. Section 17 was a penal .section, and clause i was intended to supply the nqed created by its repeal. Th.e introduction of the Bill was not an admission that the system of trial by courts-martial had broken down. It was more convenient <ind less expensive to have military defaulters d)alt with by civil cour.a than by courts-martial in time of peace, . A vigorous protest against any. concessions being made to the military defaulters wa£ made bv Mr. V. IT. Potter (Iioskill). "The hangman's rope is tho proper thing for the shirker and the ro "or in time of war," said Mr. Pctter. I say that-straight to tho-member for ! Buller—and I know lum well enough. He hoped that tho Minister would stand with the returned soldiers in refusing to lift the penalties that had been earned by shirkers. The law ought to be enfoSird'Hcaton Rhodes endorsed the explanation given by the Minister of Justice in regard to clauso i. He did not admit that the courts-martial had broken down. An officer was not permitted to serve a 9 a member of such a court um-ii he had attended a certain number of trials and was well versed in the procedure. There were no conscientious obiectors in prison to-day. , ■ The second reading was carried on the voices.
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Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 4, 30 September 1920, Page 6
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490DEFAULTERS AND DESERTERS Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 4, 30 September 1920, Page 6
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