ELSIE WALKER CASE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 40020, 7 November 1929, Page 4

ELSIE WALKER CASE.

RE-OPENING OP INQUESTS

'{SOME JUDICIAL PRINCIPLES. Professor R, M. Algie writes as follows to the Auckland Herald: • The demand lor a. reopening of the Elsie Walker ease has now reached its highest intensity. We are told till at a petition hearing some fifteen thousand signatures has been presented to Parliament. What will ,be the result, and what would be gained even if the inquest were reopened? These are interesting questions and they touch upon matters of far-reaching importance. It is sometimes a wise plan to turn aside from a contemplation of the rights and wrongs of any one -particular case and to examine the broader issues that are involved. It has already been authoritatively stated that this inquest will not be reopened,, but no very convincing reasons were put forward in support of this decision. Good reasons there are in plenty; and they should have been given at the time. Had this course been adopted, much popular clamour might have been avoided, and- an appeal to Parliament, based partly, one would think, upon a mild form of -hysteria, would have been unnecessary. -First of all, should remember that -a very full inquiry has already been held. If a second inquest be conducted, there are two possible advantages that might be gained. In the first place some person who has valuable information to disclose afforded an opportunity of disclosing it. But there is no necessity to expend a large amount of public money solely -to .achieve this end. People who have any-thing-useful to communicate or any' reasonably sound theories' to advance may quite properly place their facts or their theories before the proper police authorities. If the police had anything whatever tq go upon, the public can rest assured that the criminal law would very speedily be set in motion, and -a definite charge would be Laid before the ordinary Courts of the land. The second possible advantage that might be gained by re-opening the inquest is that some person who has an interest in concealing the truth may by the processes of examination and cross-examination be -compelled to divulge matters which he would gladly withhold. A close study of tlhe details -of the present ease leads one- to the view that this second purpose is not very likely to succeed. A WIIDBR QUESTION. But, beyond all -this, there is the wider question, Should inquests in general be subject to the rule that they can be reopened if it appears that additional light might be thrown upon the cause of some obscure tragedy? Those who are familiar with legal processes avouUl no doubt at once answer this question in the negative; and the public may safely accept such an answerin the present instance. The reasons in support are easily given. To begin with, it is in the public interest that, when an inquest is being- held, every possible endeavour should be made to -see- that all available information is produced to the coroner at that tme. If those whose duty it is to produce such evidence knew that a second or c-ven a third inquest could be held, this fact might induce them to be oaii-eless or slack in the collection and sitting of all the available material. Again, the decision of a 'coroner’s inquest is treated as being on the same footing as the judgment of a Court: While such decision stands, it must be accepted as true. The law eorild never he properly administered if the judgments of the iOourts could be freely ignored and fresh inquiries held simply because it was felt that some further evidence was forthcoming. Only on very stringent conditions can a new trial be allowed on the ground that further evidence is available, and, although we have had centuries of coroners’ inquests, it has never been thought worth while to depart from the rule above referred to. Again, if it be conceded that- an inquest can be reopened once, then there is no logical reason why it should not be reopened again and yet again,as occasion may :ijri.se. Surely it is better that matters of this kind should be well and thoroughly done in -the first instance than that they should be constantly and perhaps needlessly revived with great costT to the iS-tatc and with consequent expense, -annoyance, and even pain to the relatives of those who are most intimately concerned. PUBLIC INTEREST PROTECTED. Finally, there is the''point that ample protection of the public interest exists without violating wellestablished legal principles in order to satisfy tliei demands of individuals in particular cases. It may be safely asserted that nothing is now likely to be gained from a reopening of this inquest which cannot be achieved by existing legal processes independently of inquests altogether. One may well quote a passage from a judgment from Lord Cockiburn, a former Lord Chief Justice of England, who had to consider the very question that is now troubling the public mind of this country, and who had the advantage of hearing a very able argument on the subject: His Lordship said: —“We have the authority of Lord Hale, and the uniform course of practice in support of the proposition, that a icoroner cannot hold a second inquest while the decision in the first is still existing. If the coroner were allowed to hold two inquests the greatest inconvenience might arise from the inconsistent findings of the respective Courts.

In holding an inquest tbe coroner performs a judicial duty. . . .

and lie can hold no second inquest in the same case unless the first has been quashed by regular process an this Court.”

Such is the law, and it is to be hoped that for once politicians may find it better to follow accepted judicial principles -of long standing than to yield too attentive an ear to popular clamour. It is much to be desired that no amendment of tbe existing- law in the direction asked for will be made.