THE NELSON EXAMINER.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XIV, Issue 57, 13 October 1855, Page 2

THE NELSON EXAMINER.

Saturday, October 13, 1855.

Journali become more nepen«ry t« men become more equ«t •nd individualism more to be feared. It would be to underrate their importance to cuppote that they wm only to secure liberty: they maintain ciriliiation. Dl TocaUBTILLI. Of Democracy in America, toI. t., p. 330.

There are some things, in all civilized communities, which by common consent are considered of such extreme importance, so deeply affecting the interests of society, that nothing like uncertainty or irregularity is suffered to attach to them, and foremost amongst these is a due and regular administration of justice. In newly-settled countries, institutions which the colonists introdpce with them are always subject, more or less, to causes which disturb their free and harmonious action ; and however inconvenient it might have been in the early days of this and other settlements of New Zealand, to go on some time without any provision existing for the sitting of the higher courts of justice, it was an evil which had to be submitted to. The time, however, for irregularities in the sitting of the Supreme Court in this and other Provinces of New Zealand, we hoped had passed, excepting always in cases of accident ; but it seems we are mistaken.

The jurors who were summoned to attend the sitting of the Supreme Court lately held here, were required by their summonses to be in attendance on Thursday, the fourth of October ; but in the advertisement which gave notice of the sitting of the Court, it was stated that the Court would sit " on the day after the arrival of his Honour the Judge by the steamer, from Wellington." Now, seeing that the majority of jurors are not resident in the Town of Nelson, but are scattered over the country districts,- it seems a most unreasonable thing to expect men to be in attendance on the Court by eleven o'clock in the forenoon, who had to travel in some instances a distance of twenty miles, when the necessity of their attendance was only communicated to them on the preceding evening by the firing of a gun in Nelson, at nine o'clock, the hour at which the steamer arrived. Nor are the jurors the only parties interested — suitors and witnesses reside likewise in the country; and on this very occasion, the defendants and principal witness in a civil case set down for trial, resided upwards of twenty-five miles from the town, and could not, therefore, be summoned at all ; so thafc\he-e&se has to stand over for six months.

Notwithstanding we have intercolonial steam navigation, there may be a difficulty in determining to a day the arrival of the Judge for the purpose of opening his Court in those Provinces in which he does not usually reside, because the single steamer we at present possess fails occasionally to observe that punctuality which a passenger-vessel should, if possible, maintain. On her last voyage to the southward, the Zingari was six days over her expected time, caused, we believe, by her making a trip from Lyttelton to Akaroa ; and the consequence was that, instead of a stay of two or three jfciys which she usually makes here, her stay this voyage was confined to one day only ; for, having arrived at nine o'clock on Tuesday evening, she sailed again at nine o'clock on Thursday morning, which left the Judge only one day for the transaction of the business of the Supreme Court, as his Honor was under the necessity of proceeding on to Auckland, where the ill-health of the Chief Justice renders the presence of the puisne Judge necessary. The practice previously adopted, of issuing a second summons to jurors after the arrival of the Judge, naming the actual day on which the Court would sit, had in this instance to be departed from, because of the required attendance of the Judge at Auckland; and the irregularity of the steamer, by exceeding the proper duration of her voyage to the South, rendered it necessary that she should limit her stay in Nelson to the shortest possible time, in order to be able to catch the William Denny with the mails. From these two, causes, the business of our late session had all to be transacted in a few hours, and after insufficient notice, and the trial of three cases postponed for six months, because the Judge could not remain even a second jiay to dispose of them. No one can say that this is the way in which the business of the highest Court in the colony ought to be conducted. The Judge himself, in reply to a presentment from the Grand Jury complaining of the manner in which they had been summoned, admitted the extreme impropriety of the whole proceeding, and stated that, suffer-

ing as he was from the effects of a sea-voyage, he was not fit to sit on the bench on the only day.he was at liberty to devote to the business. It is to be hoped that this will be the last time an occurrence of the kind will ever take .place here ; for surely a provision for the proper holding of criminal and civil sessions in all the Provinces of the colony, is one of the highest functions of a Government, and is what no Government, amenable to the people for its acts, will dare to neglect.