JUDGE RICHMOND ON LAW REFORM.

Evening Star, Issue 3097, 22 January 1873, Page 3

JUDGE RICHMOND ON LAW REFORM.

In charging the Craml Jury of Nelson Judge Richmond spoke as follows : It was usual to refer to tho legislation of the past session of Parliament. He had, as was his duty, looked over the A cts of the session, but had not minutely studied the legislation ; he could, however, say that in regard to the criminal law there had not been any changes beyond one small matter of form. Various attempts had been made at law reform dining tho s ssion. and he regretted that some of the propositions in this direction had miscarried. One or tv o Bills, touching matters affecting the fundamental principles of the criminal law had been introduced, hut had not been proceeded with. He thought on some of these matters in this Colony, we might not improperly show the way to the mother country, our more simple forms and requirements rendering this easy in some instances The Colonics had already shown the way to the mother country in some important practices relating to criminal law, such as that of the private execution of criminals, in which the mother country followed the example of the Auslralian Colonies, which had borrowed tho practice from America. The barbarous punishment for the crime of treason had been abolished, and another substituted, the mother country following the example of New Zealand, which in the present state of affairs had required a change. In the matter of the grand work of consolidating the criminal laws, it was essential not only that these laws should be similar but unifarm in their operation. The judges of the law had frequently found inconvenience from this want of uniformity. If that were secured, it would simplify our relations with the other Colonies, He sl.ould desire to see that uniformity as regarded the criminal law extended to all tho Australian Colonies, which, for one thing, would simplify all proceedings in the matter of extradition of criminals. In obtaining, with least dilliculty, the extradition of criminals wh - had Hod fiom one Co'ony to another, it was a necessity that any offmee in one Colony should be designated in like man in r as in the others. A difference in the law caused a difficulty, but he hoped to sec some day that there would be an assimilation of the cr miual law nob only in the Colonies bub in England also, s> that there might lie hut one criminal law for the whole of the empire. Efforts had been made to amend the Larceny Act. He could not call it to amend the law, for that was not attempted, but merely to a't r tho wording of the Act; and he must say he sympathised avib'i such efforts; but it was a pure y technical matter, and did not affect th • law in any way. The criminal Acts of 1807 were very voluminous, and it was well known to th sc who had studied them that anything more provocative of the revising pen it wou’d be difficult to find. It would be not less difficult to find anything more abounding in diversity, pr.nmeration, and distinction between the different kinds of larceny. There ayas larceny of some sorts in which there was no difference ; then there was laroony of cattle, larceny of documents, larceny fiom dwelling houses, larceny from slips and wharves, and various other descriptions. Wherefore were there such ridiculous dia* tmetions in matters in which wc all knew the actions themselves were exactly .the same? Everyone knew what theft was, and why, therefore, should there be these distinctions ? Well, the explanation was that tbe?c acts were simply intended to bo a consolidation of the criminal law, not a code—nor do these Acts define what larceny is. The common law did that, but it was difficult to consolidate without repeating the provisions and the language. It was not intended to alter the law in a single point by these Acts, and so it was necessary to preserve the form and wording of the law as it stood. These Ats did not supersede a sixth part of the laws, nor half that, but aT these technical distinctions were embodied in order to preserve the old forms, so that the lawyers should not obtain a tvrthnn i/nid, or third reasons or means of escape for criminals to their own great benefit. All the statute law bad therefore to be preserved, and the provisv ns of the older statutes to be emb >died in these larceny Acts. Had this not been so. there would have been raised a now crop of verbal questions to the profit of the lawyers, and to that of those gentlemen win take a position at that bar ; in fact, that new crop would only benefit the lawyers and thieves ; and hence, when a reform of criminal law came, he hoped it would bo as complete as possible, As a sincere law reformer himself, he witnessed the attempt to carry this larceny act with the same feelings as he should have done had he gone into the bush and beheld a bushman cutting a knob off a rata vine which was destroying a go d tree, instead of, cutting down the rata, root and branch. Altering the mere wording would not be to improve these consolidated 'statutes. If anyone could provide a penal code, that was what was desirable, ahd he believed fhere was a good example in the Indian penal code, which would no doubt be found useful in any efforts in that direction. It was possible to effect the change, and we must be

content to wait for it. The difficulties and distinctions could be greatly reduced by a scientific reform of the law. It might be that the Court might encounter some of these difficulties during the present session, and he certainly regretted that we were living under a system of law where these anomalies existed. 1 1