CHIEF JUSTICE CRITICAL

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20012, 10 August 1939, Page 5

CHIEF JUSTICE CRITICAL

SYSTEM AT FAULT PROCEEDINGS AT INQUEST RECORPING DEPOSITIONS (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day Remarking that the method of taking depositions at 'inquests was seriously at fault, the Chief Justice. Sir Michael Myers, suggested in the Supreme Court, Wellington, yesterday that the legal profession should take steps (to have it altered. A witness of a fatal accident, out of which ithe case before the court arose, having described the accident in her evidence in chief, was asked in cross-examination why part of her narrative had not been told at the inquest and she had replied that actually she had told it, even though it had not been recorded in the deposition which appeared as her evidence at Uhe inquest. "Every one of the witnesses has said that what happened was this," said His Honour: "That the statement which was made by him' or her to the police was put in; he or she was asked whether that was correct and the answer was yes; then he or she was asked a number of further ques-' tionis and gave answers, but the answers are not here in the depositions. Ido not suppose it is the fault of the coroner, .because he has not the facilities."

The cross-examining counsel, Mr. O. C. Mazengaib: He has not even a clerk. : "It 'is not his fault," said His Honour. "I am not blaming him in the least, but there is something wrong with the system—-something very deficient with the system. It means really that, for the purposes of any subsequent proceedings, coroner's depositions are of very little value.

"Of course, the coroner may bave thought the questions had very little to do with what he had to decide — the cause of death. Nevertheless, the questions were asked and answered The system needs overhauling." Mr. Mazengarb: May I be permitted to say it is a vicious system that does only balf of the thing. His Honour emphasised the statement that he was not criticising the coroner himself.