LIBERTY OF SUBJECT

Hokitika Guardian, 1 November 1929, Page 6

LIBERTY OF SUBJECT

BRITISH ENCROACHMENTS,

United Press Association—By Elecvnv Telegraph—Copyright).

LONDON, October 31

The Lord Chancellor, after consultation with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Snowden, has appointed an all-party committee of Parliamentary lawyers, under the chairmanship of the Earl of Donoughmore, “ to consider the powers exercised by Ministers and the Crown by delegated legislation and judicial and quasi-judicial decisions.”

The Committee will report that safeguards are necessary to secure Parliament’s sovereignty and the supremacy of the law. The appointment of this Committee is the sequel to expressions of opinion, especially among the judges, that Ministers and officials are encroaching upon the spheres previously allotted to Parliament and to the law courts. There have been frequent protests against the alleged bureaucratic usurpations.

CHIEF JUSTICE SHOWS THE WAY LONDON, October 31.

In reference to the Lord Chancellor’s Committee, attention was first focussed on the subject by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Hewart’s book, entitled “ The New Despotism,” in which he strongly criticised bureaucracy. One of Lord Hewart’s strongest protests was directed against, the insertion in the new Acts of a clause giving State Departments power to interpret their provisions.

The “Daily Telegraph,” commenting on the subject, says: “It is unusual for the Lord Chief Justice to write a book which is so much more than a criticism as to be a most damning and crushing indictment of a well-defined feature of the existing system o'f government. Indeed, it is so unusual that the motive must not only be strong, but overpowering. His cause is nothing less than the liberty of the subject, and his challenge must be answered without delay.”