The Daily Telegraph. SATURDAY, JULY 28, 1883.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3755, 28 July 1883, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph. SATURDAY, JULY 28, 1883.

The Contempt of Court Bill is a measure that has been very much needed, and has been loudly called for. That Supremo Court Judges, remarks the New Zealand Times, who owe their high position to the supremacy of law over private passion and interest, should themselves be free from the obligations of the law, and bo allowed to punish summarily without trial, and without even hearing- the accused in his defence, was one of those monstrous absurdities whoso existence could only be justified on the ground that it had never been carefully noticed. Our contemporary thinks that the Bill errs in omitting to go further than introducing a novelty in legislation. It was wise, says the Times to provide that judges should no longer have the power, without trial by jury, to inflict fines of from £50 to £100, or sentences of imprisonment up to six months, Avhonever they may think their dignity aggrieved; but the Bill might well have gone further, and prohibited the Judges from sentencing to fine or imprisonment of any kind until the issue had been tried in the usual way. It is quite true that in New Zealand, and also in most of the other Australasian colonies, the Supreme Court Judges can afford to leave their dignity to take care of itself. But that haa been a matter of personal idiosyncrasy ; and in New South Wales the case has been otherwise. More than once in that colony Judges have sentenced to fine or imprisonment on the most frivolous grounds, making use of the arbitrary power given to them at a time when the rights of the people to a fair trial by jury under all circumstances were not thoroughly understood. Quite lately an instance of this sort has occurred in the case of the Sydnsy Morning Herald, an ablyconducted journal of the highest respectability. A.similar case occurred with the same paper some years back, when a letter from a clergymnn was inserted on a shady transaction which had just come before the Court, and where a verdict had been given against the defendant, but where, without the knowledge of the proprietors of the journal, an appeal had been lodged. Notwithstanding the explanation and apology published by the proprietors for the inadvertence, in that case a fine of £50 was arbitrarily imposed. The law in such instances ought obviously not to leave arbitrary powers in the hands of Judges, who, after all, are but men, with the same passions and sentiments as other men. And to argue, as the Minister of Justice did, that it would be wisest to wait until the matter is legislated upon in the Home Country shows a misapprehension of the reasonable causes for delay in legislation, and of the need of waiting for precedents. Where an evil complained of has no complications requiring careful inquiry, but is obviously the mere result of negligence, and is clearly an infringement of the demands of public justice, any intelligent man's common sense ought to be a sufficient guide to teach him at once to adopt a needful reform.