SUPREME COURT AT CANTERBURY

Lyttelton Times, Volume II, Issue 61, 6 March 1852, Page 5

SUPREME COURT AT CANTERBURY

The following Memorial has been numerously signed, and has been sent up for presentation to his Excellency. Its prayer is so reasonable that any attempt to explain or enforce it would be almost impertinent. It cannot, however, be too widely known, what is perfectly notorious here, that several cases of felony have been hushed up, because the sufferers had rather submit to the lesser loss of being robbed without remedy, than to the greater loss of having to prosecute. And if the common and daily talk of the public may be taken as any criterion, no case of felony will be prosecuted again, until the Supreme Court shall hold its sittings in the Settlement. We may add that it requires but a single stroke of His Excellency's pen to put an end to this mischievous and alarming state of affairs. To His Excfxlency Sir George Grey, K. C. 8., Governor-in-Chief, of the Colony of New Zealanb. The Memorial of the undersigned Magistrates, Land Owners, House Holders, and other inhabitants of the Canterbury settlement humbly sheweth that grievous injury and inconvenience is suffered by the people of this settlement and great expense entailed upon the colony from the necessity which now exists of sending prisoners for trial before the Supreme Court to Wellington. That witnesses are called upon to leave their homes for many weeks without any remuneration, to the great detriment of their pri\ate affairs ; and that the direct and necessary consequence is a disinclination to prosecute, which threatens to paralyze the operation of the laws, and offers a complete impunity to crime, within the settlement. That hai'dly less inconvenience results from the enormous expense now involved in civil proceedings before the Supreme Court, such expense amounting in the great majority of cases to a practical denial of justice. That the population and business of this settlement are now equal to those of Nelson, which has long enjoyed the advantage of a local Session of the Supreme Court, and that the expense and inconvenience of such a local Session would not be comparable to that involved in the present system. That under the circumstances above stated, your Memorialists humbly pray that your Excellency will be pleased to proclaim this settlement a separate judicial district, and to direct that the Supreme Court may hold periodical sessions therein.