The Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, SEPT 13, 1906. THE LAW AND ITS ADMINISTRATION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3711, 13 September 1906, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, SEPT 13, 1906. THE LAW AND ITS ADMINISTRATION.

His Honor the Chief Justice of New Zealand, Sir Robert Stout, recently sentenced a man to three months’ imprisonment for assault on another man. His Honour told John Whelan that he was being let down lightly. So he was. It was the least the man could expect. Please note the different texture of the judicial mind. Mr. Dyer, an Auckland magistrate, had before him the other day a man named Woods charged variously with violently assaulting a young girl, rendering her insensible, using obscene language to her and generally behaving like a veritable beast. This also according to the judicial mind called for a light punishment. The man was not sent anywhere, where he could be restrained from following his brute instincts. He was fined and released. A thief in Auckland, the amount of whose theft totalled less than ten shillings, was sent to gaol for two months. It was a slightly smaller offence than bashing a man and an infinitely greater one than assualting a young frail woman.

'f' 'fc The judges of New Zealand desire greater power to deal with criminals, and for this purpose they have been instructed in endeavouring to get the law amended to make it possible to indeterminately sentence habitual criminals. Apparently the power they now possess is not taken advantage of by some of them and some magistrates, while others use the power with such indiscriminate judgment as to make the punishment of a wrongdoer a matter of mere conjecture. It is a mere chance whether the criminal is regarded as a criminal or an unfortunate and the chance generally rests with the judge, magistrate or Justice of the Peace who may have the hearing of the case.

The hearing of that assault esse in which a girl was so brutally treated was the the work of two amateur magistrates. If the Chief Justice of the colony heard the assault case in which only men were concerned, why should mere J.’s P. hear a case in which the assaulted person is a woman ? A manual for the guidance of J.’s P. has just been issued and it is to be hoped that those Justices who are able to read will learn it off by heart. It is also to be hoped that those Justices who cannot read will get any of their children going to school to read it to them. It is an extraordinary position that any man in New Zealand, no matter whether he has any educational attainments

or no, can by a little pushing become an amateur magistrate, and, as has been shown many times, make a laughing stock of the Bench. * * *

Many Justices are entirely dependant on the clerk of the court, so that in many cases heard in New Zealand the prisoners are practically sentenced by a policeman. Much may depend on the health, nabits, or point of view of Judges, Magistrates orJ.’sP, There are many extremes. We find judges who are deeply religious men and prohibitionists. We find magistrates who are distinctly not either, and who have made scandal for the whole colony. Imagine for a moment a Magistrate giving judgment against a stationer who was found guilty of selling ‘ indecent ’ postcards and the same magistrate making a painful exhibition of himself in Christchurch, though a sin that is infinitely worse in a magistrate than the sin of selling indecent post cards is in a stationer. The apparent mistakes of judges and paid magistrates are of course fewer than the obvious blunders of the unpaid magistrates of New Zealand. A time must come when the people will recognise that the man who is trusted even with an amateur magistracy shall have some qualifications for the task. In the past the J.P. ship has been given as commonly as a school certificate, but with less reason.

Oe course it is admitted that there are many men in the ranks of the ‘ ‘ great unpaid ’ ’ who are capable enough of performing their duties and this being so it is unfair that they should be belittled by fraternity to men whose only qualification is that they have been useful in some small way to the powers that be. Every man who aspires to become a J.P. should not only be forced to show his qualifications by passing a general knowledge examination, but by showing a reasonable knowledge of police court procedure, common law and the Magistrates’ Court Act. * * * A J. P. who has to be guided by a policeman or other clerk of the court is not an atom of good to the country,' he is frequently called upon to witness declarations which he doesn’t understand and generally does not try to. He has to perform duties of the utmost importance and which may seriously involve persons and property. Yet he is not called upon to know anything. The mere fact that he is willing to give his time for nothing is supposed to be sufficient qualification. Appeals against the absurd decisions of J’s.P. are infrequent, merely because most people whose cases come before them are not financially strong enough to go to higher courts. The J.P. is often a busy business man, who leaves his shop in a hurry in order to adorn the Bench for an hour or two. He is incapable as a general thing of running a business and the justice of the court too, and as a general thing he doesn’t try much. It is not his fault. It is the fault of the system.

What sort of a system is it for instance that permitted a bankrupt J.P. to still hold his commission for years after the filing of his schedule. How could such a man discriminate between right and wrong in Magistrates’ Court debt summons cases. Perhaps if the Commission of the Peace was made a thornier rod there would not be so many J’s.P. as there a'e at present. The work of the courts would be in arrears, but it would be better to have the work in arrears if justice was ultimately done, thag to get the work out of hand in the unjust way that is becoming so common. The only public office in New Zealand where average education and intelligence is not a passport, is the Commission of Peace, and it is high time that schools for justice should be established. There are policemen in New Zealand who consider it necessary to know something of law and who do actually qualify as lawyers, while still remaining police officers. How many J’s.P. are there in the colony who consider it necessary to know the first thing about the duties of their position ?