AN UNJUST LAW

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 15 May 1912, Page 3

AN UNJUST LAW

Among the many pecularities of New Zealand laws there has recently been a spirited controversy between the Napier telegraph and the president of the local Law Society, of the linjustice which may be inflicted upon defendants in debt cases, who have not complied with certain formalities of S. M. Courts. The newspaper is backed up by Mr Gordon Lloyd, a Dannevirke lawyer, who writes :— " I can instance cases in which judgment has been given bv default against protesting defendants for sums they did not justly owe, and an opportunity to show that the persistence of the plaintiff in his claim was dishonest has been refused to them. Such results can only tend to bring the administration of the law into contempt. I think I i&m right in saying that if a plaintiff brought in a Magistrate's Conrt the most preposterous and unjust ■ claim imaginable, for damages or alleged debt up to the full limit of the court's jurisdiction, and the defendant or his solicitor unwittingly omitted to g*ve the 'requisite notice of intention to defend in time, judgment would go against the defendant without any hope of redress either by way of appeal against the j udgment itself or" against the magistrate's refusal to grant leave under section 4."' It is understood that the Hawke's Bay Law Society intends taking steps to have the statue amended.