"GLARING, ABSOLUTELY GLARING.
THE CRITICISM BY MR JUSTICE EDWARDS. When the Prime Minister announced towards the close ot last session, that the consolidation of New Zealand’s numerous statutes had been completed, the work of the condensers and codifiers received much praise ; but a paragraph in Saturday’s Post indicated that Mr Justice Edwards was not among the admirers of the conversion of the various loose ends and scraps of legislation into neat - looking volumes. His Honour’s language had not that calm, cold tone usually associated [ with a judicial utterance. His outburst was frank and sweeping. “ This consolidation,” he exclaimed. ‘‘is purely for the good of the legal profession ; it is not for the benefit or convenience of the judges, because it has increased the labours of the judges to an enormous and outrageous extent. It is glaring, absolutely glaring !” Commenting on that spirited expostulation, one legal practitioner remarked that the crop of litigation arising out of the Criminal Code Act had not been very great. Only a few cases had come on as a sequel to the doubtful construction placed on certain sections in the consolidated measure. Whether the troubles would be many or not alter a consolidation depended, of course, on whether the work had been done carefully or not —whether the law, as consolidated was consistent with the law that existed previously. He was not prepared to say whether the consolidation, 'in the present case, was defective or not. Another lawyer stated that the consolidation was a source of puzzle to a great many practitioners in the absence of cross references, in detail, to old statutes. It was difficult to learn where different parts of statutes were re-enacted. “ But we don’t complain,” he concluded with a smile. ‘‘But—” persisted the curious interviewer. “We don't complain,” the lawyer gently said, and his smile was more subtle and more deep. And then some of the words of Mr Justice Edwards flashed through the questioner’s mind —‘‘it has provided plenty of work for the lawyers.”
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/MH19090408.2.16
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 453, 8 April 1909, Page 3
Word count
Tapeke kupu
333"GLARING, ABSOLUTELY GLARING. Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 453, 8 April 1909, Page 3
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Manawatu Herald. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.