PRIVILEGE CLAIMED

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 139, 29 June 1937, Page 10

PRIVILEGE CLAIMED

-Fresa Aieociation.)

ILetters in Hunter E$tate Claim

(Bj Telexraplt—

WELLINGTON Last Night. A claim for priyilege for letters writfen to ihe Police Departiuent by Lady Hunter asking for an investigation into the treatment of wool and skins on tho Porangahau sheep sjtafcion was upbeld by Judge Smjth and the letters, whicli ■were put in by Dete ctive-Sergeant Eevell, as a sealed exhihit, ^yere returned to the Police Department. The Judge said that it was plain that he was ehtitied to look at the letters for himself for the purpose of deteminr nig whetfaer public interest required that they should not be diselosed. He had looked at them and found that, taken together, they eoald properly be described as letters of an informer to the poliee asking for a police investigation into an alleged crime. In those circumstances the letters seemed to como within the authority of a passage Su a judgment oi' the Cdurt of Appeal which, interpreted broadly, meant that, eicept where the liberty of a snbject was involved, complaints to the police irera privileged. This was not a criininal cas'e, and, :MM the letters Vrlma faeie came within

the Judgment he referred to, he was un.able to order their production and they would be handed back to tho police, In reply to a question by Mr Weston, the Judge said that if a letter was onee privileged, even copies Could not be produced. It was in the paramount pjiblic interest that any person was eutitled to eommunieate with the poliee and that communication was privileged.