Greymouth Evening Star. AND BRUNNERTON ADVOCATE. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1901. EXTRAORDINARY RULING.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 14 November 1901, Page 2

Greymouth Evening Star. AND BRUNNERTON ADVOCATE. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1901. EXTRAORDINARY RULING.

Mr. Bishop, Stipendiary Magistrate at Christchurch, has laid it down as a principal that in Court cases the word of a lawyer is to be excepted as against the testimony of an ordinary witness. As a consequence he appears to have brought a hornet’s nest about his ears, and is not likely to hear the last of bis extraordinary ruling for some time to come. A solicitor was suing a client for costs, and the client swore positively that the solicitor had exceeded his instructions and had misled her. The only evidence on the other side was that of the solicitor, so that the testimony was balanced and anonsuit would under ordinary circumstances have been entered up, but His Worship could not bring himself to believe that a member of an “honourable profession ” would go into Court and commit “ such abominable perjury.” If he decided against the solicitor, he said, he would be opening the way to numbers of unscrupulous persons who desired to get out of paying their lawyers’ costs. So aporder that “ unscrupulous clients ” might not take advantage of “ innocent confiding lawyers,” a ver- } diet for the plaintiff was recorded. As to the actual merits of the case it matters but little, but the ruling is a most extraordinary one and is not logical. The Lyttelton Times declares that it is not sound to contend that because a man is a lawyer, he is necessarily an honorable gentleman. “A solicitor is a man who passes certain examinations in law and general knowledge. We have never heard that veracity and honesty are two of the compulsory subjects. As a matter of fact some of the biggest scoundrels in history have been lawyers, and a lawyer is just as likely to be a scoundrel as is a schoolmaster

or a mining expert. Mr. Bishop, to our mind, would have been on sounder ground if he had elected to protect the simple-minded public. To have nonsuited the plaintiff might have opened the way to unscrupulous persons who desired to get out of paying their lawyers’ costs, but in declaring, as the Magistrate did, that a solicitor must necessarily be an honorable man he undoubtedly opened the way to the unscrupulous solicitor to bleed a confiding client. The decision leaves the public absolutely without protection, and we are astounded at the adoption of so obviously dangerous a position.” Going to law has always been regarded as an expensive luxury, but if to the expense is added the “ruling” that no matter how great may be the neglect or mismanagement of the lawyer, clients have practically no redress, for if the lawyers’ word is to be accepted in preference to that of the layman, then the latter’s position becomes one of much uncertainty. The decision simply gives over the simple-minded litigant into the hands of the lawyer who, not to call him dishonourable, is liable to made mistakes in the compilation of his bill of costs.