THE GLOBE. FRIDAY, JANUARY 7, 1881. OUR COUNTRY MAGISTRATES.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2143, 7 January 1881, Page 2

THE GLOBE. FRIDAY, JANUARY 7, 1881. OUR COUNTRY MAGISTRATES.

The case of Regina v Scarborough and Wright, which occupied the attention of the Supremo Court the other day, is an instance of the way in which both public time and money are wasted unnecessarily. As our readers ho doubt gathered from the evidence adduced, it was a case of the most trumpery character, which should never have come before the highest judicial tribunal of the colony. Tho local Bench wore fully competent to have dealt with it, and the law would have been amply vindicated by the imposition of a fine. One is at a loss to understand tho reasons which induced a Resident Magistrate to send for trial a case of this description. It is too often the case that what is known as justices’ justice draws forth comment of an unfavorable character ; but here we have a gentleman holding tho responsible position of a Resident Magistrate putting the country to a very large expense, and causing the whole paraphernalia of tho Supreme Court t® bo set in motion for a case of no more importance or magnitude than those dealt with in tho Resident Magistrate’s Court hero day after day. It must be remembered that tho witnesses

had to bo brought from a long distance, and that consequently their expenses wore proportionately heavy. In cases whore justice has to be vindicated and crime punished, no one would for a moment consider the cost, within reason, incurred in so doing. But hero is one in which neither of these features presented themselves. As his Honor remarked, the case was a most tjrampery one, and no better illustration could have been afforded of his Honor’s feelings on the subject than the sentence passed. Such a case being brought into our highest tribunal has a tendency to—if wo may use the expression—lower the standard of justice, and no one can but feel deep regret that it should ever have left the precincts of the Akaroa Court. It is sincerely to be hoped that his Honor’s remarks will have the salutary effect of preventing in the future a rejiotition of such a sorry spectacle as the whole machinery of the Supreme Court being put in motion over a matter which, if it wero not a serious matter for the accused pecuniarily, would only excite mirth. Besides, the heavy expense to the public, the defendants wore put to both inconvenience and cost quite unnecessarily. As we have said, the matter might and should have been decided by the local Bench without the necessity of a number of witnesses being convoyed a very long distance, This is not the first time, however —but scarcely so glaring an instance —in which the want of knowledge, or some other defect on the part of the committing Magistrates, has cost the country a largo sum. In dealing with many of the simpler cases of crime, there are some in which the ends of justice would have been adequately served, and the repression of crime quite as effectively carried out by the local Magistrates dealing with them. However, if the one now under notice has the effect of making Magistrates more cautious in the class of cases sent forward for trial, it will have borne good fruit.