DRUNKEN DRIVERS

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 137, 26 June 1937, Page 14

DRUNKEN DRIVERS

-Press Assooiation.)

Suppression of Names Not Justified MR. SEMPLE INDIGNANT

(By Telesrepb-

CHRISTCHURCH* L«kt Nigst. "It seems that the only option left to me as Minister of .Transport in my endeavours to make the highways and by-ways as safe as possible by getting rid of the dxunken driver is to amend the law so that judgments of this kind cannot be given by Justiees of the Peace," said Hon. B. Semple to'day in commenting on the decision of two Justiees in a Blenheim, case, in which a motorist pleaded guilty to a charge of intoxication in dharge of a car. The Justiees fined the offender £5 and granted an application for the suppreasion of the name. . - "It is another demonstration and A glaring one, " said Mr. Semple, "qf the lenieney in which some J.P. 's view cases of drunken" drivers brought bofore them. A Magistrate wonld hever have handled this case in snch a way, and the Court records prove tihat, beyond all doubt, this man was fined a paltry £5 withput his license being endorsed, and his name was suppreased. "Suppression of the name, to my mind, is nothing more or less than discrimination and a miscaTriage of justice. It should not take place in administering the law in serious cases where public lif e is at stake. Where any man who .gets intoxicated takes charge of a car and is brought before the Court, the people of New Zealand should know who that man is. Publication of his name is the greatest deterrent against him doing it again. It is not. the fine so mueh as the exposure that prevents him doing it again.' ' Mr. Semple said Ihe had issued a warning to the Justiees, and it seemed that they took no notice of it. "Let me repeat," he added, ''that J75 innocent New Zealand pera'ons have lost their lives in the past seven years through drunken drivers. During th same period, 2500 motorists were con* victed in the Courts on charges of being drunk in charge of motor vehicles."