LEGAL APPOINTMENTS.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 542, 14 March 1876, Page 3

LEGAL APPOINTMENTS.

{From The New Zealand Jurist for February 1876.) “ I asked the Rogiatrar, but he could give me no assistance,” said his Honour the Chief Justice, when dealing in Chambers with a very nice question of practice which had arisen under the lately-repealed Rule 167. The Registrar referred, to, Mr E. ff. Ward, is a gentleman of large experience as a professional man, and quite competent to assist the Court on all ordinary matters ; but the case ivliich here presented itself for decision was perfectly new to Judge and Registrar alike, and both were puzzled by it. We wonder how often the learned Judge who presides over the Canterbury District of the Supreme Court will be reminded of this quasi complaint—“l asked the Registrar, but he could give me no assistance ” —when dealing with novel points of practice arising in his Court ? The newly-appointed Registrar in that District being a non-professional gentleman, the practical result of the appointment will be this, —that the presiding Judge must be his own Registrar. The mass of business usually disposed of by the Registrar —from the taxation of a bill of costs up to an enquiry as to “who are the parties respectively entitled to the hereditaments in the pleadings mentioned, and in what shares and proportions, and for what respective estates and interests,” &c -must in fut'. re fall upon the shoulders of the learned Judge. For it cannot be supposed for a moment that this business can get itself disposed of in any other way. If the Registrar should gallantly undertake it, he cannot possibly be luminous in the midst of fog ; and, as delicacy must restrain him from seeking advice in a friendly office outside the Court, the only source of assistance left him will be the Judge himself. But even that way out of the difficulty will not be found to answer the Registrar’s needs; for the simple reason that Judges, even if inclined to advise, are not supposed to know anything about mere points of practice, their personal experience being that of barristers, and not that of solicitors, before their elevation to the Bench, As a matter of fact, Mr Justice Johnston, who was called to the Bar at the Middle Temple, in 1843, never practised as a solicitor before he was appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court of New Zealand in 1858, and we may safely infer that his large and varied knowledge of law docs not include a knowledge of those branches of practice which form the daily business of a solicitor’s office. He may never have drawn up a bill of costs, and he may possibly be unable to decide whether the correct charge for a certain item in a bill would be 6s 8d or 13s 4d. Now, if under such circumstances as these, the Registrar of his Court should tax a bill of costs on unsound principles, and the aggrieved party should take out a rule to review the taxation, we ask whether the costs of such proceedings should not, in all fairness, be borne by the Consolidated Revenue, instead of being charged against the unfortunate suitor ? We regret that the resolutions passed on this subject by the Law Society at Christchurch did not put the matter in a more technical shape before the Minister of Justice. There is little or nothing, on the face of them, to show the Minister that he might just as well have appointed Mr Frederick de Carteret Malet to command the Luna as to fill the office of Registrar of the Supreme Court. The difference between the two things is simply the difference between one technical science and another. Navigation is not more technical than law ; but the technicalities of the one are visible to everyone who looks at a binnicle, while the technicalities of the other are not visible “ to the naked eye. ” Many intelligent laymen would be apt to suppose that a Registrar of the Supreme Court is as easily picked up as a Registrar of Births, Deaths, and Marriages ; but it cannot be supposed that the Government would, on a proper representation of the case, feel itself bound to retain Mr Malet in an office which he cannot hold without unpleasantness to himself, dissatisfaction to the profession, and serious injury to the suitors in his Court.