INTERFERENCE OF THE GOVERNMENT WITH THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 69, 23 October 1862, Page 3

INTERFERENCE OF THE GOVERNMENT WITH THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.

We confess we were never more startled than on reading that the Chief Justice had expressed in the Legislative Council his approval of what is called the “peace policy” of the Government ; and that, with especial reference to Hawke’s Bay, he had stated, in substance, that Mr.. Crosbie Ward appeared to have introduced that policy into that district to the satisfaction or contentment of both settlers and natives. As we could not believe that the Chief Justice would use the language of irony on such an occasion, we could only conclude that he had been misled by Mr. Crosbie Ward’s report of his proceedings at Hawke’s Bay ; but after a perusal of that report, wo were reduced to the conclusion that he could not even have read it; but that some one hud repeated to him certain words used therein in certain relation to the ease of Shirley, that “ both parties were satisfied ” —words which have been, as might have been expected, expressly contradicted by Shirley, one of the parties rel'ored to ; and than which nothing could be necessarily farther from the truth, whether contradicted or not. We have ourselves only mul Mr. Crosbie Ward’s report before taking the pen to write this article ; and we are constrained to say that we never in any document met with such a combination of ignorance and folly expressed in sober language. But ignorance and folly may be consistent with an upright intention. Here, however, wo have a functionary of the Government explaining with the utmost nonchalance the steps he deliberately took to make a court of justice instrumental in violating the law in order to punish a person whose only crime was that he had kept the law ; and to reward those who had assaulted and robbed him. it appears from the report that Shirley suffered injury to the extent of £5 t ; and as Mr. Crosbie Ward states “ that the impotence of the law having been declared to be a prime reason for the loss which Shirley sustained, and a reason also why he could not recover the amount of damage done to him from those Who committed it, — (those to whom the I'.IO was awarded —) “Justice required that government should give compensation. I therefore caused the sum of £u() to be paid to Shirley on this account, and permitted him to suffer theMeniiamler of his actual loss as a penalty for his obstinacy, as defined by the judgment of the Court” —that is for refusing to make a payment, the making of which, by an expressed enactment of the New Zealand Legislature, would have subjected him to a penally not exceeding £IOO. We were in great hopes that an application would have been made to the Supreme Court to quash the verdict, and that the Chief Justice would thus have had an opportunity of judicially reviewing a far more serious and injurious interference with the administration of justice than the one which he has so ably dealt with in the Legislative Council, in relation to the interference of the Superintendent of Wellington with a decision of the Resident Magistrate. The case of Shirley is now, however, under reference to a committee of the House of Representatives. We will not venture to predicate how it will be dealt with there, but we shall marvel much if it fail to call forth animadversion from much higher quarters; for we believe the annals of judicature might bo searched in vain lor so bare-faecd an interference of the Government with the administration of justice, and so scandalous a prostitution of the functions of justice to the ends of the Government. — Aucklander.