LEGAL ETIQUETTE

Hokitika Guardian, 1 March 1933, Page 4

LEGAL ETIQUETTE

FOR JUDGES WHO RETIRE

QUESTION OF .TAKING BRIEFS.

Is it correct legal ctiquetf,> for a Judge who has retired from the Bench to go into chambers and accept briefs to argue in the . Court over which he but recently presided ? There an© scores of people who say that he shou.a not. but these people have eithiap good income,s or fat pensions, says the Sydney <■—r lx .soot dent: of the MelboiVrn P - 4 n\ The argument has arisen owing to Mr Piddington, K.C.—former-ly Mi teusaAe' Piddington of the Stut e Inaugtral At- ' .lDwiiUU Court, red- at one i-nie called to the High Court Bench—being; ask rv l to be counsel for the unions in the Standard .Working Hours inquiry which the Full 'Court Bench is about to commence. Not so long ago a- stipendiary magistrate retired from the Bench on w a pension so inadequate that it 'would be absurd to ask a man to live on it/ He read up and qualified as a solicitor, and can practise fn the Court over'which he presided. Mr Piddington, K.C., is certainly a 'lion-hearted man- to enter thp list® again. But that is not the point.

The writer adds-—.“ There is i something in the Act, put there in the interests of the workerto save expense and to prevent ’ the people with the ■most money buying up great bursts of legal eloquence',' which says that the Court ehall be froo from’-solicitors ©V barristers, and that the officers of the parties, unions or associations, or something akin, ' shall do all tl% argues necessary. There are also som© old. •laws which may or'.may not have pome bearing on the matter that a retired, judge shall not /practise in ia court in which h e has hitherto had jurisdiction.”